


Flashlight

by HandsintheStars



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Falling In Love, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-11-23 20:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11409309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandsintheStars/pseuds/HandsintheStars
Summary: Keith Kogane is a lone survivor in the apocalypse, convinced that surviving with other humans will only bring trouble to him. On his way to find the only family he has, Shiro, he runs into a boy named Lance who slowly convinces him that there can be more to life than just surviving.They encounter obstacles on the way to find their families, only falling deeper and deeper into love as they realize that they can't survive without each other anymore.





	1. The Flashlight

**_FLASHLIGHT_ **

**_CHAPTER ONE_ **

**November 1st 1:00 am**

    He was an idiot. He was such an idiot for thinking it was a great idea to settle down in that abandoned house for the night. Why settle for an easily breakable shed when there was probably a neighborhood full of perfectly fine empty houses a mile away? Sure, he would run the risk of being out at dark for a few minutes, but at least he wouldn’t now be running in the dark from a hoard of the infected that had torn down the crappy shed he was in and almost killed him in his sleep. 

Keith was racing through the woods, heart beating, chest heaving, lungs burning, and every part of his mind screaming out about how he was an idiot. He strained to see just a foot in front of him as he ran through the foggy darkness of the woods probably crawling with the infected. There was no doubt that this was it for him. 

All he had was a knife, having left behind his backpack that held everything else he needed to survive back at the shed in his desperate escape. He woke up to almost being killed a half hour ago with the hoard of infected long behind him. He wasn’t going to stop running though. Not now and not ever until he got out of these woods and in a place where he could see. 

Unable to see a tree root in the ground as he ran down a hill in the woods, Keith tripped and fell over, rolling the rest of the way down the hill. He finally landed at the bottom thanks to a large rock that was sticking up out of the ground, preventing him from rolling any further. 

“Fuck…” he muttered out, his legs shaking as he fought to pick himself up and keep running. 

When he stood up, a sharp pain took over his knees as if they were begging him to let them rest on the ground for just a few seconds longer. Though he knew he needed to get up, his body couldn’t refuse anymore requests in him to let him rest. He fell back down again, laying down in the leaves on the ground of the woods as he stared up at the sky. 

He could see the stars. When was the last time he had the chance to look up at the stars? Maybe he should just take advantage of the moment and-!

Keith’s eyes widened when he heard a low groan to the left of him by a creeping infected. He strained to get up, every muscle in his body clenching to force him back down again, but this time he couldn’t listen to their pleas. He had to get up or else both him and his aching muscles were going to become dinner to the nearby infected. 

He immediately started to run forward again, adrenaline pumping through his veins still. His eyes searched desperately in the darkness for something, something he could grab onto as hope. He just needed to get out of the woods and survive the night and then, then he would be in the clear and alive for another day. Maybe tomorrow night, he would find a proper house to sleep the whole night in. 

As he ran, Keith started to lose any hope he was every going to reach the end of the woods before running into a mob of the infected. His eyes burned as tears started to fall from his eyes. He wanted to scream out every cuss word there was as everything was going wrong tonight, but he couldn’t even do that much. Making any noise whatsoever would send every infected within a thirty meter radius to come attack him. He was pretty sure his stomping against the ground as he ran was already causing just that as well. 

Something suddenly flashed in his sight from far away though. It was bright and couldn’t be dismissed as his imagination or his brain desperately creating something for him so he wouldn’t lose hope. This bright light was definitely coming from a flashlight, which was something that could only be held by a human! A very stupid human for being out so late and shining a flashlight for all of the infected to see, Keith thought to himself, but at least it was a human out late enough to shine a flashlight for him to see. 

As if adrenaline wasn’t in him at all before, Keith ran towards that light as if he was running those final few seconds of a race. All he had to do was make it to the light and then he was free until he had to deal with that certain human. 

He heard growls and footsteps behind him, making him imagine his death if he was just a pace slower than what he was running. He ran faster and faster until he couldn’t feel his legs under him. He ran until he rammed into the light and toppled over the human holding that flashlight. 

Once again though he was the idiot of the night, because there were definitely consequences to ramming yourself at an unknown human in the middle of the night in an apocalypse run down by infected monsters that kill. Keith experienced that consequence when he heard the human under him shout out in panic right before a gunshot was sounded off and a pain in Keith’s shoulder shattered into wild fire. 

“Fuck!” he screamed out, rolling off of the human and holding onto his shoulder. 

His chest was heaving up and down both from having just ran two miles non-stop and also from the pain he was feeling all over his body and especially in his shoulder. The flashlight shined on him and he peered at the light, trying to figure out who was behind it, but the light was too bright for him to be able to see anything else. 

“I’m human,” he snapped. “Who fucking shoots at someone without checking if they were a human or not first?”

The boy behind the flashlight started to speak too fast for Keith to understand, stuttering out a million apologies as he still managed to sneak in a few, “What kind of person is running around in the woods at night with infected around and tackles down another person as if they were an infected?”

Keith glared at the boy that sounded his age even though he still couldn’t see him due to the bright light in his face, “Well what kind of person is shining a fucking flashlight in the woods late at night for the infected to flock to like a bell for meal time?”

“Watch your fucking language!” the boy shouted, only to cover his mouth with both hands, muttering out, “Oh Dios mio, mama is going to murder to me.”

“Get off of me,” Keith snapped, making the executive decision that he did not want to stick around with this guy any longer. Being around people like him reminded him why he liked staying alone. 

The boy dropped the flashlight and pushed Keith down on the ground, making sure he stayed as he said, “Dude, you are not fit to just walk away, you know. Two days and you’re dead with a gun shot wound like that. In fact, I give you less than two days.”

“Wanna make a bet?” Keith snarled, attempting to push the boy off of him again until he was held down by the boy’s stronger force. 

“I’d love to make a bet and win it, but my conscience tells me to do otherwise. You need to come with me. I have a first aid kit that I guess I can use on you, since I was the one who shot you… But deal is you can’t steal my food and you can’t kill me, alright?”

Keith glared at him, holding onto his shoulder tightly as he thought about what scenarios could possibly happen in the near future if he declined or accepted the offer. Buying himself some time to make the choice, he asked, “What makes me think you won’t do that to me though?”

The boy was quiet for a moment, only to answer sarcastically, “It doesn’t look like you have any food I can steal. Do we have a deal or what?”

Did Keith really have a choice? He wanted so badly to just trek on and fix this situation himself, but the boy was right. If he went off by himself, he would only be able to go on for two days at the most and the whole time he would be suffering and in pain. Maybe if he went with the boy it would be the same, but at least he had the chance. And plus, he had been making so many stupid decisions tonight, what was the danger in making another one? 

Keith started to speak, reluctant and regrettable about what he was about to say, but before he could say anything, his breath caught in his throat and his eyelids fell in front of his eyes as everything in his body faded out as well. Maybe he wasn’t going to die from this, but he was definitely passed out for God knows how long. Maybe this all really was the end for him, with him having made one stupid mistake after the other, over and over again from the start of since he could remember until where he was dying now. 

At least he wasn’t dying alone like he expected himself to, under a pile of raging infected that were tearing at his flesh. He would have taken this death a countless number of times before he would ever ask for a death like that. If he was meant to die tonight, he was thankful he saw that light, that small flame in the night. He just wished he could have accomplished what he needed to do before he died. 

 

**November 3rd 3:57 pm**

“I’m sorry!” Keith screamed out, as his eyes opened wide and he suddenly woke up. 

His breaths were coming out short and quick and his body felt too hot. His head hurt, his muscles were cramped, his throat was dry, and his stomach was turning. The only thing he could move were his aching eyes that desperately searched the room for answers as to where he was and if he was even alive. 

“Sorry about what?” a tan boy with soft brown hair stood over Keith and came into his view with a soft smile and a tilted head that made him blush bright red. This was the flashlight boy from last night. He was sure of it because of that obnoxious voice he couldn’t get out of his head while he was unconscious. 

Keith furrowed his brows as much as he could to seem intimidating as he asked, “Where am I? What have you done to me and why can’t I move?”

The boy shrugged, “Don’t know man. Not my fault, but you might have a fever and you’ve been out for almost two days. You know, I’ve seen in movies how people sleep for multiple days, but I didn’t think that was actually a thing that could happen. Seeing you sleep for like… over a day and half man was really amazing!”

“You talk too much,” Keith groaned, shutting his lips tightly into a tight line as he squirmed with discomfort under the sheets. 

He inwardly cringed when the boy caught on to how he was feeling, peeling back the covers as he said, “Can you really not move? The bathroom is only like two feet over there if you are just feeling lazy.”

“I’m not lazy and I’m not paralyzed…” Keith deducted out loud, staring up at the ceiling. “I’m just…Can you move my right arm for me? It’s ok to move, right? You did a decent job of patching me up?”

“A decent job? I did an amazing job!” the boy boasted, suddenly becoming ten time more obnoxious. “I mean, I took the bullet out, I stitched it up though it does look a bit rough, and I made the blood stop!” 

Keith nodded his head, looking towards the boy with a bored look, “Ok that’s great… what is your name?”

“Uh, the name’s Lance,” the boy spat out, glaring daggers in Keith’s direction now. 

“Great, ok, Lance,” he said in a monotone voice, “I’m very thankful for this all, really, but I need to get going, and before I do that, I need to actually be able to move. Just move my arm for me so I can get used to it.”

Lance shook his head, “Nuh uh, no way. I can force that on your body. It should heal on it’s own. It’s not like you have anywhere to be!”

“I do,” Keith muttered, now trying to sit up with all his might though every part of his body shook from over exhaustion. He fell back down in a huff, staring up at Lance, “Don’t you want me out of your life?”

“Where do you have to be?”

“What does it have to do with you?”

“Because I have to be somewhere as well!” Lance exclaimed, now leaning forward over Keith. Keith suddenly became aware of the fact that he couldn’t move, deciding that it was best for now to just play it safe and be nice to this guy while he had the disadvantage of being too weak to move. 

Keith looked off to the side of the room, irritation spilling over his mind though he was trying his best to become submissive to the conversation. He muttered out a response finally, “I have to go to Texas. Where do you have to go?”

Lance’s eyes widened, “Are you serious? I’m going to New Mexico! I’m gonna meet up with my family, so how about we just join forces until I reach my home and then you can go on your way to Texas?”

“Aren’t we in New Mexico?” Keith asked, feeling like if it was just a short trip to get this kid to his family’s house, then he wouldn’t mind. 

Lance paused for a moment, causing Keith to look up at him in confusion as to why he wasn’t answering. Lance had a smile on his face that looked like he was trying everything in his power not laugh. When Keith finally moved his lips to start to ask what was going on, Lance burst out laughing and answered, “We are in California! What made you think we were in New Mexico?”

Keith’s eyes widened and he sat up, this time ignoring every cry his body was screaming at him to lay down again. He held his breath as a pain swelled up in his shoulder and attached itself like lighting to the rest of his body. He held onto his shoulder and muttered out, “I’ve been going in the wrong direction this whole time…”

“Wait, where did you start off?” Lance asked, getting up to pull a bottle of advil out of his bag for Keith. 

Keith snatched it from Lance’s hands, though he looked up at him with grateful eyes and answered reluctantly, “I started out in Idaho… I’m so bad at reading maps!”

Lance laughed again, causing a blush to come across Keith’s face. Keith could feel his cheeks burn with an embarrassed heat, forcing him to look away so Lance couldn’t see. Why was he so gay even in the apocalypse. This kid seemed super annoying, so was he really becoming that desperate? 

He felt Lance touch his uninjured shoulder and say, “Well I’m amazing at reading maps, so it’d be great to have me along. And consider this, I do all the work of keep us alive while your shoulder heals and by the time I find my family, you will be good as new and on the right track to Texas to do whatever you need to do. Sound good?”

“It sounds terrible,” Keith muttered out, looking down only to feel another surge of pain rush through his body like a raging river running over a dam. There was no way he could travel alone with this shoulder. There was no way he could enjoy spending the next few days with a guy who spoke like he could handle anything, but what was the lesser evil?

Keith looked back up to Lance, screaming at himself internally for getting himself into this situation, but knowing that this was the best decision for him. He took a deep breath, “But if it is to survive, then I have to say yes.”


	2. Pictures

**FLASHLIGHT**

**CHAPTER TWO**

**November 3rd 6:00 pm**

    It was the same day that Keith woke up from his mini coma and it was the same day he agreed to travel with his new acquaintance Lance until they got to his home in New Mexico, so how in the world was Keith already regretting his decision of ever even talking to Lance? 

They were eating dinner, which took Lance a while to convince Keith it wasn’t poisoned or spoiled. Keith watched Lance like a hawk as he fixed dinner for the both of them, just to make sure he knew what was happening to the food he was about to eat. It ending up being only a plate of mildly warm beans from a can and some salsa and chips, which was more than Keith had eaten for a dinner since the start of the apocalypse, but he still had room to complain. 

“I’d hate to say this, but you are super fucking stereotypically Spanish,” Keith stated, sitting back in his chair as he watched Lance dig into his salsa and bean covered chips. 

He took a break from stuffing his face to correct Keith, “I’m Cuban actually.”

“Same thing…” Keith muttered out as he laid his head down on the table to stare at his food. 

Lance sighed and set down his fork that was found in one of the drawers of the now abandoned but still new looking home. He poked Keith’s cheek and said, “So you are an emo Asian from Texas with a short temper and a hole in his shoulder. Is there anything else I should know about you before we embark on our journey tomorrow?”

Keith looked up at Lance with a glare, in too much pain to move his finger away from his cheek though. He scowled and growled out, “I’m like one-eighth Asian so don’t call me an Asian Texan. And I’m not an emo either.”

“Recent observations made by me think otherwise,” Lance grinned, holding up a backpack that made Keith’s eyes widened. 

“How did you get that? How did you even know where it was?” Keith asked, getting up and wincing in pain as he looked at his backpack he had to leave behind in the shack when he was attacked by the infected. 

Lance shrugged, “I just followed your tracks all the way to the shed and got your stuff! It’s so you owe me one, by the way. I hope you don’t mind, I did do some snooping around though. That’s how I found out you were an emo.”

“Not an emo,” Keith growled, reaching out with his good arm to get his backpack back. 

“No way!” Lance teased, setting the backpack down. “Eat your food and tell me more about yourself and then I’ll give it to you.”

“What?” Keith breathed out, “That’s not fair! I don’t know anything about you.”

Lance grinned, stuffing another salsa covered chip in his mouth, “I’ll tell you about me too. It will be a bonding moment.”

Once Keith showed no signs of aggression or protest, Lance took that as a sign that the bonding moment idea was accepted and that he was free to begin, “Are you gay?”

“Nevermind, I don’t want to do this,” Keith growled, starting to get up until Lance pulled him back down again, thankfully making the choice to pull him down by his good arm instead of his bad arm though it still hurt like Hell to Keith. 

“Come on! I don’t care! I’m bisexual so I won’t kill you or anything,” Lance explained, watching as Keith sat back down like a cat that found out it was over reacting. “I just saw a picture of you and this hot guy in your backpack and you guys looked close but not related, so my mind went to boyfriend.”

Keith sighed, looking down at his food and realizing this would all be a lot easier if he was eating as well. He was starving and not in the mood to do anything except for eat and sleep but now he was having to talk about his past to someone he just met. He looked up at Lance with a glare, “Look, you seem nice and all, but I’m not telling you anything. That guy is like a brother to me and that is all. He’s waiting for me in Texas.”

“Sounds like a boyfriend to me-!”

“He’s not!” Keith shouted, slamming his fist on the table with his good arm even though it still caused pain in his whole body. He held in his needed cries of pain in order to keep his frightening stance to scare Lance out of talking about it anymore. His chest was heaving up and down from heavy breaths before he continued, “Snoop around in my bag some more and you will find his wife and kids. I just need to find them because they are the only family I have.”

“Oh…. ok….” Lance muttered out quietly, trying to relieve the stress from the situation as quickly as possible. He didn’t check in the backpack for a picture, because he didn’t feel the need to follow up with what Keith said. Keith didn’t seem like the type to lie, which was one of the only things he could tell at this point. 

Keith finally started to eat his food, never taking a break from bites so there was no way he could be asked questions and be expected to answer. Lance sighed and looked down at the backpack, knowing he had made a mistake asking that first question and even telling Keith he had looked inside the bag. He found way too many things in there that were disturbing enough for Keith to be angry about him seeing. Seeing some of the things that Keith kept in his backpack only made Lance have more questions about him and his past in the apocalypse and before it. There was something dark in Keith’s past that made Lance’s curiosity run wild. 

 

**November 4th 9:00 am**

“There are a few infected around the area, so we are going to have to make a run for it to my car,” Lance muttered to Keith, looking out the window at three infected that were hanging out on their temporary home’s lawn. There was no doubt that they had found where they were from Keith shouting last night. That was partially Lance’s fault so he couldn’t get mad at Keith for what happened, but he did hope Keith didn’t have another outburst again later on due to him accidentally touching a sore subject. He turned around to Keith who was lying down on the floor, holding his shoulder, “Do you think you can run?”

Keith’s eyebrows furrowed and his lips turned into a scowl as he replied, “It wasn’t my legs that were shot; of course I can run.”

“Ok then,” Lance nodded, trying to assure himself that Keith wasn’t trying to be strong just to prove a point. He only knew the guy while conscience for a day, but he would feel down if he was bitten as soon as they left the house. 

Lance grabbed both of their backpacks, slinging them over his shoulders as he walked over to Keith and held out a hand, “Are you ready? Do you have a gun on you or?”

“I’m fine with a knife,” Keith ignored Lance’s hand and got up on his own, wincing the whole way up. He pulled a knife with black, silver, and purple colors out of his belt and held it up for Lance to see, “Knives don’t run out of bullets.”

Lance frowned, ‘Well duh, knives don’t need bullets.”

Keith sighed loudly and walked past him towards the door, holding his knife in front of his chest as he said, “That’s the point, stupid.”

“Asian Texan samurai…” Lance mumbled under his breath as he walked up next to Keith before he opened the door. 

Lance watched as Keith quickly counted the visible three infected on the lawn. Lance opened his mouth to speak about the plan of how to evade them, but before he could Keith ran outside with no warning at all, yelling, “Don’t shoot them, it will only attract more.”

“Well yeah, we were just going to run!” Lance yelled out at Keith from the doorway, watching as Keith stabbed two of the three infected in a record breaking time of five seconds. Lance wanted to shout at Keith for being stupid enough to attack an infected with an injured shoulder, but he couldn’t help but keep watching how quick the boy was when attacking the infected, like he was trained into this art. Keith was graceful, he would give him that, his long hair flying in his face when he jumped back or fell to the ground. He watched as Keith struggled to blow it out of his face while holding onto his shoulder at the same time. It was kind of amusing to watch until Lance realized exactly what he was watching. 

His eyes widened as he realized there was a fourth one the both of them didn’t see that had managed to attack Keith from behind. Thankfully Keith had escaped before he could be harmed by the infected, but now he was on the ground in pain as that infected was creeping closer. Without thinking and almost like he was in a dream, Lance ran towards the infected, yelling out incoherent sounds as he swung the handle of his gun towards the infected’s head, managing to knock him over though he fell right on top of him. At least that brought time for Keith to run to the car though. 

Keith took advantage of the moment and ran as fast as he could towards the car, struggling to get the passenger side door open, but thankfully managing to get in and close the door as Lance ran from the infected and got in on the driver’s side. As soon as he got in, Keith shouted out, “Why didn’t you just shoot it?”

“You said not to shoot it, though your plan - if I can even call it a plan - was all around stupid!”

“I know.”

“Terrible!”

“I get it,” Keith groaned on. 

Lance started the car and drove onto the main road as quickly as possible, “You could have gotten killed! What would I have done then?”

“Got in the car and left? I don’t know,” Keith responded in a low tone, looking out the window. 

Lance peered at Keith out of the corner of his eyes, confused how the guy could be so grumpy to him even after he saved his life. He huffed, “I probably would have at least killed the infected and buried you.”

Keith laughed under his breath, shaking his head in disbelief, “Don’t be stupid, you don’t even know me.”

Lance sighed, “Yeah you’re right.”

Keith’s smile from disbelief faded into a frown as he heard what he expected. Of course no one was going to care about him when he died. He had no family to worry about him being alive or not, Shiro was probably worried about his own family to even think about Keith, and he was completely alone in this apocalypse. 

“Since I don’t know you, I’d probably just guess at your last name and what you’d want to be on your little grave stone. And since you are salty with me all the time, I’d put something embarrassing like ‘Keith the Idiot. Here is a moment of silence for the one-eighth Asian Texan samurai who had too much salt for his wounds.”

Lance was surprised when Keith actually let out a laugh under his breath, immediately covering up his mouth with his hand and then following that up with a wince of pain from accidentally moving his shot arm. Lance felt his heart jump in his chest when he heard Keith laugh, unsure what made him so happy to hear his new friend so happy. Had it been that long since he heard someone laugh that he felt so happy to hear it? Or was he feeling his heart beating faster because of who was sitting next to him laughing? He shook his head, smiling to himself… He had to stop thinking like this in the apocalypse. 

“Why am I a samurai?” Keith asked, pulling Lance out of his thoughts. 

Lance looked to Keith, confident that no car was going to come out of nowhere seeing as there was no one even able to drive a car around, “You fight with a long knife. You’re not exactly a samurai, but doesn’t samurai sound cool?”

Keith shrugged with one shoulder, looking out the window again, “Maybe not cool, but I can tolerate it…”

“That’s the spirit,” Lance grinned, staring forward again. 

He was about to command Keith to get the map out of the dashboard and to at least find where they were for him, but as soon as he turned to just look at Keith again, Keith was asleep once more. His breathing was steady though his chest was moving up and down dramatically with his breaths as if he was being tormented in his sleep. There was no doubt he was in distress, but was it because of the pain of his shoulder or something else? It was probably both, but every single time Lance looked at the mysterious boy when he didn’t have a barrier up, he found himself wondering just how he came to be the way he was. 

He was determined to find out everything he could about his fellow survivor, starting with why he kept apologizing over and over again when dreaming. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!  
> Please leave a comment or bookmark if you did!


	3. Pancakes

**FLASHLIGHT**

**CHAPTER THREE**

**November 5th 2:00 am**

      Keith woke up swimming in his own sweat underneath his clothing. He always hated when he woke up like this, feeling like he was drowning in boiling water and suffocating all at the same time. He had to get out of this feeling or else he was going to puke. 

He opened his eyes to see that it was dark out and he was still in the car. Being in the car at night was just as dangerous as being in a shed or having no shelter at all. Keith’s heart started to race as he looked to the driver’s side to see that Lance wasn’t in the driver’s seat. He swung his head around as much as he could without hurting his shoulder to check the back seat until he realized that there was no backseat of the car. 

Lance’s car was a heavy built blue Ford truck with the words spray painted onto the side, ‘The steed of Sir Lancelot’. Keith managed to notice it before he hopped into the car earlier that day after the infected incident. He had been too tired to poke fun at Lance for spray painting something so stupid onto a car that already looked tacky, so he wrote a mental note to make sure to badger Lance about it later if he hadn’t been abandoned by him yet. 

Keith looked around a little longer until his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the outside and he could see a house a little ways up a hill with the lights on. Was Lance in there? It wasn’t too far away for the trip up there to be possible in the dark, so Keith decided that it wouldn’t hurt to just check the house instead of staying in the car and miserably waiting for morning to arrive. 

He reached his left hand over to open the car door, almost falling out when he realized a little too late that he had already been leaning against the car door. He thankfully caught himself before falling and managed to close the door and make on his way towards the house. 

As he walked up the small hill, he heard distant growling sounds in the distance, sending a cold feeling throughout his body though it wasn’t enough to make him turn back. His body felt heavy, he felt light-headed, his mind was scrambled, and he was burning hot all over. It was like he was running a fever, and he hated it. 

He walked faster and faster until he finally reached the door, banging on it loudly as he shouted, “Lance let me in!” completely forgetting about the infected that were around. 

There were a few sounds of people whispering harshly at each other as footsteps hurried to the door. The door opened with a loud creak, a big guy answering the door instead of Lance who Keith expected. Keith’s eyes widened and he asked, “Is there a guy named Lance with you?”

“Did you leave the car unattended?” he heard Lance in the background whine. 

His confusion turned into anger before he pushed the big guy to the side with his good arm and walked into the house, shouting, “Why did you leave me? I had no idea what was going on when I woke up!”

Lance was at the table eating, looking at Keith with a tired look as he slowly responded, “This was just a quick stop before I went back to the car and drove until morning. Driver had to make a pit stop!”

“Driver is an idiot and should have woken Keith up!”

Lance laughed, “You are talking in third person, what the heck?”

Keith growled under his breath and hit Lance over the head, “Idiot-! Ah!” 

He stumbled forward and grabbed his shoulder, vision blurring as he desperately grasped for clarity in his sight and mind. This fever was getting worse and he couldn’t stand standing up anymore. 

The big guy came back into his vision, an orange piece of cloth tied around his forehead to keep his bangs out of his eyes and a yellow shirt with a green vest over it. It wasn’t long before a kid came into Keith’s vision, a boy with a green shirt, glasses, and fluffy light brown hair. The blurry visions of Lance and two people Keith didn’t know was the last thing he saw before he passed out. 

 

**November 5th 9:00**

There was a smell of cooked food and the sound of forks scraping plates when Keith woke up again. Pain flowed through his body once more, now that he was awake and fully aware of his body’s state. Suddenly, as if he was an image popping into Keith’s head, the boy with the green shirt was looking over him, fixing his glasses as he observed him from too close of a distance. 

Keith clenched his teeth and sat up, looking at the kid and asking, “Why are you so close?”

“Ooh, sleeping beauty is awake!” Keith heard Lance mock him from where the sounds of eating were coming from. 

Keith’s stomach growled, but he couldn’t stay here any longer. He had to get out of here, survive alone again, and get to Shiro and his family. He was not meant to be with this many people. He gave one look to the boy with the glasses, the big guy with the orange cloth around his forehead, and Lance who were all three staring at him. 

“Are you hungry?” the boy with the glasses asked, sounding more like a girl than a boy though. 

Keith rolled his eyes and huffed, ignoring the kid and getting up. His shoulder felt better now, but it still hurt too much for him to ignore the pain. He knew he could deal with it long enough to get to another house away from people though. Holding onto his shoulder, he picked up his backpack that was by the door and opened the door, only to see that it was night and there were twenty infected scattered around the place. 

A few late shouts came from the kitchen as Keith shut the door, telling him to do exactly that. Lance got up and yelled frustratedly, “What are you doing? You just woke up! You could pass out again.”

“I need to go,” Keith demanded more than explained. He set down his bag since he knew he wasn’t going to be able to leave tonight, but he didn’t stop himself from complaining about it, “I can’t just sit around here when I should be on the road, finding-!”

He was interrupted by Lance getting up and mimicking, “Finding Shiro, I know, I get it. Stop whining about it already, because we are going to get there! I was only stopping here for one meal and supplies, but since you came in here and passed out, we had to stay longer.”

“Well that wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t leave me in the car all alone with no note to explain what happened!” Keith argued, as they both stepped closer to each other, almost touching foreheads as they fought each other. 

Lance furrowed his thin brows, “It was just a quick stop! I was gone for five minutes - in and out!”

“A note still would have been great!” Keith argued, “I had a pen and paper in my backpack just for you since you were so nosy to probably find it.”

Lance pouted and stepped back, “Hey, I stopped when I found a picture of you and your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend! I’m not gay!” Keith shouted out, causing an infected to knock on the window, which was the only human-like thing they could do. 

Keith and Lance broke from their fighting to stare back at infected, a chill running through both of their bodies as the infected stared back at them with a smile on their face, blood pouring from it’s mouth. 

“Ugh, I just powerwashed the porch last week!” the big guy explained from where he was sitting at the kitchen counter. 

Lance sighed, “You know for someone who isn’t gay, you are extremely self-conscious about being gay.”

“That’s because it isn’t-!” Keith stopped himself only after he was about to explain why he was keeping his sexuality a secret from him. He covered his mouth and turned around, saying quickly and in a low growl, “I’m not gay…”

“Alright Lance that’s enough,” the kid demanded, grabbing Lance’s arm and pulling him back. 

“Wait do you guys know each other?” Keith asked, eyes widening in alarm as his defense started to come up. “I thought you said you were alone.”

“I was alone!” Lance said, “I thought I lost contact with my group, but I just so happened to find them again, how funny is that?”

Keith raised his left arm up to punch Lance, knowing that it wouldn’t be a strong punch since it wasn’t his dominant hand, but at least he would get his point across through this action. His fist barely touched Lance’s face before it was held back by the bigger guy that pulled him back as well in one motion. Keith fought against him, trying his hardest to break away without moving his shoulder as the man tried to calm him down, shouting out, “Hey, we are good people too! We really did get separated from Lance and it was just out of luck that we met again. Lance, why is he so feisty?”

“Hey, don’t ask me,” Lance put up his hands in defeat, his arms still being held onto by the kid with no certain gender in Keith’s eyes yet. “He’s been asleep most of the time. He’s like a cat.”

Keith tightened his lips together in a pout, “No, I’m like someone who got shot by an idiot.”

“Cat.”

Keith rolled his eyes and ignored Lance for now to stare up at the big guy that was holding him at the moment, “Look, you can put me down now. I’m not going to kill anyone and I never was planning on it. You guys didn’t eat me yet, so you must not be dangerous, right?”

Lance pouted, “All three of us are the biggest danger you have ever-!”

He was interrupted by the kid hitting him over the head with a book and saying, “I’m Pidge and the guy holding you back from understandably trying to kill Lance is Hunk. We come in peace, you could say.”

“Pidge and Hunk…” Keith muttered out loud. “And you guys are also traveling with Lance to help him find his family?”

“I have my own family to find,” Pidge explained as Hunk finally let go of Keith. 

Hunk walked over to be next to Pidge and said, “She is trying to find her brother she got separated with in the beginning.”

“She?” Keith asked, covering his mouth as soon as he asked it though. He shook his head and quickly stuttered out, “Right you are a girl, I’m not surprised.”

“That sounded sarcastic,” Lance laughed. “Don’t worry, we were all surprised. She looks so much like a boy!”

“It’s easier to travel around like this without long hair!” Pidge snapped in a whiny way. She stared up at Keith with a glare that was meant for Lance, “It was my brother, dad, mom, and I, and this other family that we met. My brother, dad, and the dad of the other family went missing one day and we all suddenly got separate and now I am here all the way in California.”

Lance grinned, “So we are all finding our family! Except for Keith who apparently doesn’t have a family.”

“Shiro is my family!” Keith groaned, glaring at Lance. 

Pidge’s eyes widened, “Wait, Shiro with black hair and a white floof that hangs down on his forehead? Like, he looks like he shouldn’t be a dad but also is everyone’s dad at the same time?”

Keith stared at Pidge for a moment, wide eyed that they just happened to know the same Shiro. An idea popped up in Keith’s head and he quickly let his backpack fall from his left shoulder and rummaged around his backpack before he finally pulled out a small polaroid picture of him next to Shiro hugging him. 

“Is this him?” he asked, holding the picture up to Pidge. 

Pidge nodded her head, “Yeah, that’s him.”

“Please tell me he is still alive. Nothing bad has happened to him, right? No one in his family has died?” Keith asked, stepping closer and closer to Pidge with every question he asked. 

Pidge shook her head this time, “No one died as far as I know. He did disappear though.”

“Oh God…” Keith muttered out, setting the photo down on the table and turning away from the rest of the group so he could clearly think about what he was being told. In the apocalypse, when someone disappeared, it meant they were dead. 

Keith felt a hand on his left shoulder, causing him to turn around to look Lance in the eyes. He stepped back a bit, too close for his own comfort as he muttered, “I need to leave. I can’t be here with you guys.”

“What?” Lance asked, “Why not?”

“Because, yeah you’re right!” Keith yelled, throwing his hands up only to earn him more pain in his shoulder, though he didn’t let them know he was in pain. His breath was heavy and his heart was beating fast as he glared at Lance due to his own inner defeat. “I have no family! My family’s dead, his family’s dead, everyone’s family is dead, and we’re all gonna die eventually due to these…” Keith looked to the window to see the infected still staring at them with a smile, “Monsters!”

“Keith…” Lance put his hands up in front of him, pressing them slowly against the air as he said in a calm voice, “Buddy just calm down.”

“I’m not your buddy and don’t tell me to calm down!” Keith shouted, causing more infected to start banging on the walls of the small cabin. 

Hunk groaned, “Ah, they are gonna be so annoying to deal with in the morning.” He took a deep breath and got up, “That’s it. Both of you are going to go to bed right now in separate rooms. Keith can sleep down in the basement - there is a guest room - and Lance, you will sleep on the couch in the living room.”

“Fine,” Keith pouted, crossing his arms. 

“Why do I have to sleep on the couch? I’ve been part of this team longer!” Lance whined as Keith already started to try to find his way to the basement door. Pidge eventually caught on to what he was trying to do and subtly pointed to the door to the basement so Keith could still have his pride. 

Hunk tackled Lance into a bear hug around his neck, silencing him as he made promises of giving Lance an extra five pancakes in the morning if he slept on the couch and didn’t fuss about it. After that, Lance was suddenly perfectly fine with this sleeping arrangement. 

 

**November 6th 8:00 am**

Keith woke up and walked upstairs to the smell of pancake batter and maple syrup, something he hadn’t smelled since the last time he was with Shiro and his family before the apocalypse started. He opened the door to the upstairs to find Lance and Hunk stuffing their faces full of pancakes while Pidge wrote in her journal with a determined look on her face. 

All three of the them stared up at Keith when he walked into the kitchen, staring back at them as he awkwardly announced, “Good morning….? How did you make pancakes?”

“Well it’s all a matter of what you are working with actually,” Hunk explained, pushing a plate of pancakes towards Keith in a way to let him know he could sit down and eat. “I had three bags of pancake batter left this morning, so I decided to use it up before we hit the road, and I also know how to make a fire on the stove so that is really all there is to it.”

“Ah,” Keith mumbled, sitting down and staring at the stack of pancakes in front of him. He felt like he hadn’t eaten in years, so he was definitely going to finish this whole thing. He stared back up at Hunk with a sincere expression on his face, “Thank you.”

Silence fell amongst the group as he ate, stares of shock and confusion pointed at Keith like daggers as everyone wrapped their head around the fact that he just kindly said ‘thank you’. Hunk had to close Lance’s mouth before his expression caused him and Keith to get into another fight. Lance pulled himself away from Hunk and asked, “Why are you so nice to Hunk but not nice to me?”

Keith looked up at Lance as if he was the greatest disturbance he had ever met - which might have been true in Keith’s mind - and answered without missing a beat, “It’s hard to be nice to obnoxious people.”

“Well you’re just as obnoxious!” Lance whined, throwing his hands up in frustration. 

Pidge groaned, “Can you two stop fighting like children?”

“He started it!” both Lance and  Keith cried, resting Pidge’s case perfectly. 

Pidge slapped her hand on the table, suddenly announcing, “You both caused eleven infected to start snooping around this cabin, so it is your responsible to take care of them.”

“What?” Lance asked. “We could get killed! Two people can’t handle eleven infected!”

“I second that,” Keith agreed. 

Pidge shrugged, “Then you better stop yelling before it’s two against twenty. We need to leave today so hurry up.”

Lance looked to Hunk for help, but Hunk shrugged, “Less work for me. You can use my gun.”

Lance pouted and looked up at Keith who was already done with his pancakes, “You ready to go? How is your shoulder?”

“Fine,” Keith spat out, looking up at Lance while grabbing his knife from his belt. 

Keith got up and started to walk to the door as Lance spoke, “Ok, so the plan is we open the door and run immediately to an open space in the lawn and then check where all the infected are. We let them come to us slowly but surely and kill them off one by one, ok?”

“Or just run after them and kill them,” Keith muttered out, opening up the door and going outside. 

Lance’s eyes widened as he watched Keith run outside into the field full of infected, doing exactly what he did last time that almost got him killed. Lance had no choice but to run after him, knowing that this time, he was going to have to use his gun if he wanted to save Keith. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm just writing this for someone to make fanart of it tbh.  
> Thanks for reading another chapter! Next chapter comes out tomorrow.  
> Leave a comment!


	4. Gloves

**FLASHLIGHT**

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**November 6th 8:59 am**

Lance had vowed it over and over again as he was fighting the infected, Keith was an idiot! There was no doubt about it that the salty, cat-like, Asian, Texan Samurai was an idiot. Lance bit his lip as he killed the sixth out of the now twenty infected chasing after them through the woods. If it weren’t for Keith running into five infected at once, he wouldn’t have had to shoot one of them and save Keith, causing more infected to come to the area! Now they were running for their lives in the woods, Keith in front of him and now twelve infected behind them. 

“I hate you so much!” Lance called out after Keith. 

Keith didn’t respond, only holding his shoulder close as he ran to a clearing in the woods. Lance watched as Keith stopped for a moment and then suddenly ran faster. What was it he saw? For some reason, Lance followed and ran just as fast as Keith until he caught up with Keith and saw a tree house in the clearing. 

“Maybe if we climb up there, you can shoot the mob and we can make a run for it back to the cabin after all of them are dead!” Keith yelled, already climbing up the ladder as fast as he could with Lance following closely behind. 

Both of them made it up all the way to the treehouse before Lance started to shoot the infected one at a time, carefully making sure he wouldn’t miss before he shot them in the head. He had four more infected left to shoot when Keith placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t waste your bullets. I can take care of the rest of them.”

Lance nodded his head, “Alright. Woah, wait!” 

Keith froze when Lance suddenly raised his voice out of nowhere. His expression showed his confusion as he stared at Lance and turned his head in a way to ask what he was doing. Lance raised his gun to point it at Keith as he shouted out, “You were bitten!”

Keith’s eyes widened and he looked at his hand, remembering that an infected managed to bite him. He clenched his hand into a fist and looked back up at Lance, saying, “Don’t worry, they never affect me. It’s already been five minutes too, so there is your proof right there.”

“What?” Lance questioned, stepping back and keeping the gun pointed towards Keith’s head. “That’s impossible. I’d like to believe that you have a chance, but I can’t take that risk!”

Keith stepped closer towards Lance, “I’m going to show you something. But you can’t shoot me unless I actually turn purple like an infected, got it?”

“Has this happened before or something?” Lance asked, watching as Keith started to take off his shirt. He lowered his gun and blushed, “Wow, so we’re going straight from hating each other to loving each other, huh?”

Keith rolled his eyes and let his shirt fall to the ground, showing off his chest and stomach covered in previous teeth marks. There were other scars and bruises scattered across his body from things Lance couldn’t even guess from. Lance’s eyes widened and he asked, “Are you immune to bites then?”

“I think so,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, obviously embarrassed to have his shirt off in front of Lance, though Lance was too shocked from seeing the uninfected bite marks to notice. Keith looked down at the ground, muttering out, “I was bitten on the day of the outbreak, and nothing has happened since then so…”

“You are immune to this all,” Lance muttered out, looking down. His eyes widened and he looked up again, grinning, “Do you think you are the cure?”

“The what?”

“You know, like the cure to this all? In video games, there are sometimes cures to the outbreak and the cure is a human that is immune to the virus! We need to tell Pidge about you because she is super sciency and could tell us if that could-!”

“Definitely not,” Keith snapped, grabbing his shirt and putting it back on. 

Lance put his gun back in his belt, “Why not? You could save the world!”

Keith stepped so close to Lance that their noses were almost touching as Keith warned him, “You only found out about this, because I didn’t want to get shot, ok? No one else is going to find out. Not Pidge, not Hunk, not your diary, or anyone else but you and I.”

Keith had backed Lance up to the wall of the tree house, now able to push him off the edge if he wanted to. Lance had his hands behind him against the railing, staring at Keith with wide eyes as he was being threatened in a way. 

“Fine, fine,” Lance muttered out, smiling a little because that was all he could do in awkward situation. Another thing he liked to do in awkward situations was flirt without thinking, and he regretted doing that as soon as the words left his mouth. “Seal the deal with a kiss?”

He shut his eyes, expected Keith to punch him immediately for saying that, but instead, he noticed a hesitation in Keith’s stance as Keith wavered between pushing him out of the tree house or stepping back away from him in a blushing mess. Keith stayed put where he was though as he genuinely asked, “Will that make you not tell anyone?”

“Wait, what?” Lance asked, surprised that Keith was actually taking it into consideration. In all honesty, Keith was hotter than most guys he dated when he rarely dated guys, but he wasn’t about to kiss someone that could maybe or maybe not have the virus in him that could make the both of them turn into an infected. 

Before he could keep Keith from doing anything he would most likely regret, Keith smashed his lips against Lance’s, momentarily stunning him even though it was too quick for him to even realize what happened once it happened. His eyes were wide and he stared at Keith for a moment, breath quickening as he breathed out heavily, “Do we have something going on?”

Keith frowned, “No.”

“What?” Lance whined, watching as Keith grabbed his shirt off the ground and quickly put it on, taking his knife out of his belt as he hopped out of the tree house and to the infected. 

Lance quickly followed, watching as Keith killed the remaining four with ease, really living up to his new nickname as the samurai. Lance kept watching, waiting for Keith to turn into an infected any second now, but the scars of previous bite marks on his skin really were proof of the fact that Keith was immune and wasn’t going to die and turn. 

Once Keith was done killing the four infected, he looked back at Lance and said, “Let’s hurry back to the cabin before they presume we’re dead and leave us in that shitty place.”

“They wouldn’t do that,” Lance corrected, running after Keith anyway because he sprinted off back in the direction of the cabin before he could say anything else to him about it. 

When they got back, Pidge and Hunk were in the kitchen with worried looks on their faces as they looked Keith and Lance up and down. Keith hid his hand in his jacket pocket to escape having to tell the truth about his situation to them as well. Once he escaped Hunk and Pidge finding out about him being bitten, he tried to escape to the downstairs to be alone until they left, only to have Lance follow him downstairs as well. 

“Can you stop following me? I’m really not going to turn,” Keith said irritably, crossing his arms and looking at Lance with as much of a glare as he could stir up. In all reality, he was a mess. His shoulder was hurting from being shot just a few days ago, his hand hurt now from being bitten, and he couldn’t believe he just had to seal a deal with a kiss for the idiot standing in front of him. 

Keith suddenly lost his anger though when Lance lifted up his hand, holding a fingerless glove and urging Keith to take it as he said, “To hide your bite mark. It won’t go away for a while or maybe ever, so I got this out of my backpack for you since you don’t want people to know about your secret.”

Overtaken by surprise, Keith looked up at Lance, “You would actually give this to me?”

Lance nodded his head, “Well yeah, I mean, I don’t wear them anymore. I used to think these things were cool like for an apocalyptic look, you know? But… it would look better on you than me, so it’s nothing.”

“Oh wow…” Keith smiled, taking the glove and admiring it. He had never received something from anyone before. He never had friends or family outside of Shiro, so he never expected anyone to owe him anything ever… but Lance hadn’t even known him for a few days and was already offering to help him out with his secret and give him something like this. 

Keith put it on, smiling with a light blush apparent across his pale face. He looked up at Lance after admiring his glove, “Thank you.”

Lance suddenly had a blush across his whole face too that grew three shades darker the longer he stared at Keith’s smiling face. He handed the second fingerless glove to Keith and turned around, coughing and saying loudly to cover up his anxiousness, “I’ll leave you to it! I’ll go get Hunk and Pidge ready so we can leave and find our families!”

Keith watched Lance leave, wondering why his heart was beating faster even if they weren’t in danger. He also wondered why he was suddenly starting to have second thoughts with how he felt about that kiss back in the treehouse…

 

**November 6th 5:43 pm**

“Lance please turn this shit off! I’m refuse to listen to Hips Don’t Lie anymore for the rest of this ride!” Pidge yelled at the top of her lungs, earning a hush from both Hunk and Lance as they danced in their seats to the music. 

Lance sighed, “People without hips just can’t appreciate good music. Hunk gets it, right?”

“Oh yeah, this is going to be played at my funeral,” Hunk stated, forcing Pidge to move her hips in her seat the way he was. 

Lance laughed and nudged Keith who was squished in between him and Hunk on the front row of the truck that was over the filled capacity limit it was supposed to reach. Keith pouted and looked up at Lance, “What?”

“Move your hips, Sha-Keith-a!” he encouraged, managing to keep his eyes on the road as he exclaimed that. 

“No thanks, Be-Lance-e.”

Lance’s eyes widened, “Keith, I would normally get mad at someone for refusing to dance to Shakira, but you just amazed me with that genius pun so I’ll let that go.”

Keith’s bored and irritated expression didn’t change as he just looked back at the road, not wanting to talk to anyone for the rest of the ride. His face was stuck in between Lance’s bony shoulder and Hunk’s arm that was constantly moving to Shakira and he was about ready to lose it on everyone. He thought that maybe he could fall asleep in the car, but it was impossible in this uncomfortable position and with music blaring right in front of him. 

When Hips Don’t Lie started to repeat again, Keith lost it and shouted out, “I need to piss, let me out!”

Lance slowly came to a stop on the edge of the highway, snickering as he declared the stop a pitstop for everyone. As Lance and Hunk checked the gas tank and refilled it with half a gallon taken from the trunk, Keith went off to the edge of the woods to have a few minutes to himself, just taking in the space around him, the cool air he could breathe in, and the peace and silence he got away from the group. That didn’t last long though, because after only one minute or two to himself, he felt Pidge tap him on his shoulder and ask sharply, “You can’t stand them either, huh?”

Keith yelped out and turned around quickly, not wanting to snap at Pidge but also wanting to make it clear that Pidge wasn’t allowed to sneak up on him like that. He jumped back a bit as he cried out, “What the Hell?”

Pidge wasn’t fazed at all by his outburst though, only having a conversation with herself as if she was still speaking to him, “Well I don’t actually not stand them. I love them, don’t get me wrong, but they are beyond annoying sometimes.”

“Beyond? I think even annoying is annoyed by them,” Keith muttered, looking back at Lance and Hunk to see them both wearing shaded sunglasses that came out of nowhere and nodding at each other with smirks on their faces. 

Pidge was also staring at them, sighing as she looked back to Keith and shrugging, “They were like this in college too.”

“Wait, you guys went to college together?”

She nodded her head, “They were best friends in college; still are now. I was in the same college as them, but we didn’t become friends until after I lost communication with my group.”

“Yeah, actually can you tell me where you last saw Shiro?” Keith asked, “Like in what state? I just want to make sure Texas is the place I should go.”

“Shiro was on his way to Texas. I remember him saying that a farm was their meeting place if they ever lost each other? That’s where Allura and her kids were headed when he disappeared. I always wonder if they made it back though…”

“They did,” Keith stated dryly, crossing his arms and looking down. “All of them made it. Allura is too smart to not be able to make it and Shiro is too strong. Shiro is the type to win at survival game shows without even trying. A hoard of zombies is like a piece of cake to him, I’m sure of it.”

Pidge didn’t add anything else to the topic, knowing that Keith was only stating these things to convince himself that Shiro was alive and well. She knew how that felt and she didn’t want to break down any hope he had that Shiro was alive. Doing that would only make the hope that her brother and dad were alive to fade away. 

“Hey are you two done with your Anti-Shakira club meeting? I’m ready to hit the road again!” Lance yelled out from the car, starting to get in. 

Keith rolled his eyes and muttered out as he and Pidge started walking back to the car, “I’m sitting in between you and the door on the opposite side of Lance. That is the only way I see myself not going crazy.”

For the rest of the ride until night time, Keith sat in between Pidge and the door, resting on the window as he slowly fell asleep and the sky faded into darkness. He fell asleep only ten minutes before it was completely nighttime and Lance had to stop the car on the side of the road so they wouldn’t attract a mob of infected lurking by driving at night. 

Though it was packed in the car, all four ended up falling asleep in the comfort of the car. They survived another day and had no worries they were going to survive the night, surrounded by each other when falling asleep. 

 

**November 7th 1:02 am**

“Please stop! I said I’m sorry!” Keith screamed out in his sleep, covered in sweat and sobbing, his whole body shaking with fear. 

Lance had woken up two minutes ago from the noise and now was staring at Keith, wondering what he should do. If he woke him up, Keith would get pissed at him and an unneeded fight would take place, but if he didn’t Keith would attract more infected than he probably already had. What was the lesser evil here?

Keith was starting to calm down, only muttering out in almost a whisper things like, “It hurts,” or “I’m going to kill you” every few minutes. 

Lance couldn’t say for sure, but he felt fairly certain that this nightmare had something to do with the photo he found in Keith’s backpack. If not this, then what else could make Keith freak out like this in his sleep? 

He sighed and leaned his head back in his seat, trying to fall back asleep again before it was morning and he would have to get back on the road. Lance closed his eyes and started to drift off to sleep again until he heard a low blood curtailing cry rip through the air from Keith as he yelled out louder than ever, “Help me! Somebody!”

Without thinking Lance got out of the truck, not even looking around for infected before he ran over to Keith’s side of the car and opened the door. Keith started to fight him unconsciously as Lance pulled him from the car in an attempt to wake him up. Keith punched at his chest lightly, hands clenched into fists as he kept crying, “I hate you all! I hate humans…”

“Keith wake up,” Lance finally said, holding him tightly in hopes that Keith would come to his senses quickly and they could both fall asleep without having to deal with any infected. 

Keith fell limp in Lance’s arms, letting his head rest in his chest as he stopped fighting him. He let out a shaky breath, letting his tears stain Lance’s shirt even when he slowly woke up. Lance kept rubbing his back, shushing him even though he wasn’t saying anything anymore. Lance swayed him slowly in his arms, whispering out, “Please don’t cry anymore…”

“I-!” Keith muttered out, eyes widening when he realized what was going on. 

He pushed himself off of Lance and stumbled back into the car, saying softly, “What is going on? Why are we outside at night?”

“We were sleeping in the car and I had to wake you up,” Lance explained, looking down. “Are you ok? What were you dreaming about?”

Instead of an answer, Keith did the unexpected and broke out into a sob, crying even harder than he was in his sleep. He grabbed Lance’s shirt and cried into it, eventually falling to ground on his knees and pulling Lance down with him. Lance was confused, but he kept his arms around Keith, trying to be as comforting as he could. 

Lance looked around him, listening carefully to their surroundings to make sure they weren’t going to be attacked by infected for at least the next few minutes. They were slow walkers so he wasn’t worried about one surprising him from behind, but it would be nice to know how long he had before the first of many showed up to see the source of the loud sounds. 

“Keith, I’m sorry, but you are going to have to quiet down. Infected might be around,” Lance whispered, hugging Keith. 

Keith just shook his head in response and cried out, “I want to die… I need to die! I’d rather die than go back; they are going to find me!”

Lance’s eyes widened and he forced Keith to look up at him and focus on the fact that he was just having a dream. He looked Keith in the eyes and said as loudly and clearly as he could, “You are safe now, ok? No one is coming to get you. You are far away from any past dangers, but you need to quiet down.”

Keith pushed himself away Lance, falling back on the ground and leaning up against the car as he sniffled and tried to gain some composure. He rubbed his shoulder lightly and said in a soft voice, “I...They....This is embarrassing.”

“What?” Lance asked, confused about the sudden mood change. 

Keith nodded his head and started to get up, stumbling a bit since he was weak on his feet, “I can’t believe I just cried in front of you. That will never happen again.”

“Keith-!” Lance started to say, but was interrupted by Keith, saying, “Look, let’s just make this another one of our secrets, ok?”

Lance was confused, watching as Keith started to turn back to get into the car to attempt to fall asleep again, but before Keith could attempt to get in, Lance grabbed him and pulled him out, saying, “Nope.”

“What?” Keith asked, started to pull away, but Lance spoke again. 

“The problem has not been resolved, so I refuse to let you get back into the car.”

“Fuck off, Lance, I don’t want to talk about it,” Keith grumbled, but Lance slammed the car door before Keith could get in. Keith tried to open it but found it locked, forcing him to turn back to Lance to say, “Ok really, screw you.”

Lance sighed loudly to voice his frustration in the quietest way possible, “I’m only trying to help you. Didn’t you know that talking about your feelings actually helps you resolve them?”

Keith didn’t budge, “Let me get back into the car and fall asleep.”

“Are you serious?” Lance asked, hoping that Keith would trust him just a little bit, since they were now teammates in this great game of the apocalypse. Keith still looked like he was seconds away from clawing Lance’s eyes out thought so Lance was going to have to reluctantly call this conversation quits for tonight. He was sure he was going to have to wake Keith up from another night terror soon though. 

He sighed and held up his hands in surrender, “Fine, I give up. We can fall asleep tonight.”

Keith watched as Lance walked around the car, eyeing a few infected in the distance that heard him shouting. They wouldn’t be able to get into the car, so he didn’t worry about them until Lance tried to get in and froze. Keith felt a knot tighten his chest as one of his worst fears came true. 

“Don’t tell me you locked us out of the truck,” Keith asked, looking around to see at least ten infected coming out from the woods on the other side of the freeway. He felt for his knife on his belt only to realize that he put it in his bag before he fell asleep because it was digging into his sides. 

Lance noticed the infected as well, looking around in search for a plan as he muttered, “Oh, I’m an idiot.”

“Damn right you are!” Keith yelled. “What are we going to do now?”

More infected came out of the woods, now surrounding them on all sides. Lance and Keith looked to each other with panicked looks on their faces. They both screwed up in many ways, but it was their next choices that were going to make our break their fates. 

“Keith, buddy, we are about to do something super gay, but you are just going to have to work with me ok?” Lance asked, offering the only option they had left. Keith had no idea what was about to happen, but he was ready to do anything to survive this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment for the next episode to come out tomorrow


	5. Families

**FLASHLIGHT**

**CHAPTER FIVE**

**November 7th 2:00 am**

Lance and Keith lay breathlessly underneath a metal cover that was locked onto the top of the trunk, preventing anything from leaving or breaking into the truck of the truck until they unlocked it from the inside. The sounds of groans and clawing could be heard against the metal cover, keeping a fear alive in their hearts even though they were now safe from the hoard of infected. 

“So this was your idea of something gay?” Keith asked, looking to Lance in the darkness, unable to see him but at least able to feel his hot breath beating against his face. 

Lance shrugged, “Two men lying down beside each other... sweaty, breathless, and hot…. If you listen closely you can hear groans. It’s pretty gay.”

Keith tried his best not to laugh at the reasoning behind his gay comment, forgetting to think as he said, “I’ve done gayer.”

He caught himself just when it was too late, closing his lips immediately and turning to Lance, hoping that he didn’t catch that in the way it was meant to be said. He could just play it off as a joke, but he had always been a terrible liar. He waited for Lance to say something that would make him regret making the decision to get stuck in a trunk with him, but instead Lance didn’t say anything at all. 

A light appeared in between them as Lance turned on a flashlight to enable them to see each other in the dark. Lance smiled and turned on his side to stare at Keith before asking, “Do you want to talk about our families?”

“What?” Keith asked, taken aback by the subject change. 

Lance repeated himself, “Our families? And I know Shiro isn’t your only family since you must come from somewhere. Let’s talk about our parents and our siblings if you have some! I miss mine so much…”

“Tell me about your family,” Keith said, not wanting to talk about his family or Shiro at the moment since just the thought of him made him worry even more as to whether or not he was still alive. 

Lance smiled at the fact that the floor was his to talk about his family. Keith watched him happily talk about his family, “Ok well first, I have five siblings in total. I have two younger siblings and three older siblings. My youngest siblings are five and eight and my older siblings are twenty-two, twenty-four, and thirty.”

“Oh wow, how did you live with that many siblings?” Keith asked, appreciating the conversation to distract him from the sounds of raging human eating monsters desperately trying to reach them outside of one layer of thin metal. 

Lance laughed, “It was like have a slumber party every night with your best friends in my house! I’m sure it still will be when I get there. Didn’t you have any siblings before this all?”

“Only child…” Keith answered, looking down at the handle of the flashlight being held by Lance. He looked up at Lance and added on to his answer, “Shiro was like my brother though if you count other kids in an orphanage as siblings.”

Lance’s eyes widened, “You… You’re an orphan?”

Keith nodded his head, smiling to reassure Lance that he wasn’t one to be pitied, “Since I was ten. My mom had an affair with someone and killed my dad so she could run off with this guy… only to be killed two months later by the same guy because she got pregnant.”

“A-Are you serious?” Lance stuttered out. “I’m so sorry…”

Keith gave out a fake laugh, “It’s fine, it’s fine. My backstory is a real ice breaker, don’t you think?”

Keith’s fake smile faded when he saw tears forming in Lance’s eyes. He raised his head a little and asked, “Oh God, what’s wrong?”

“To imagine being all alone… it’s hard not to feel depressed. How do you do it?”

“How do I live alone?”

Lance nodded his head. 

Keith was surprised by the question, but answered anyway, “I barely remember ever having a happy family. My parents fought all the time and I don’t even remember my mom… I guess I was used to it since I’ve always been alone.”

“No wonder why you are always so crabby!” Lance breathed out, wiping his tears from his eyes. 

“Hey,” Keith warned, but Lance didn’t let him say anything else. He placed his hand on Keith’s and said, “People who survive life together are family. So you can consider me, Hunk, and Pidge your new family even after you find Shiro.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

Lance squeezed his hand even though Keith wasn’t holding it back, “I know I don’t have to. But I want to.”

Keith’s eyes widened as he searched for the words to reply back with. He didn’t know how to respond to that though. No one, not even Shiro, told him that he wanted to be family. He just told Shiro he wanted him to be his brother and he stuck by his side, but he never had someone reach out to him to be his family. 

His heart was beating faster and faster the longer he stared at Lance. What was he supposed to say? He wanted to cry right now, but that was definitely not an option. He also wanted to laugh but he didn’t know how to without making the situation completely awkward and ruining the moment. Instead… he did both of the things he didn’t want to do the most and started to laugh as tears fell from his eyes. 

He kept laughing under his breath even when Lance visibly looked so confused with his reaction. Keith looked up at their thin metal roof that was being banged on mercilessly by the infected. He grinned through his tears and said, “That is the first time someone has ever told me they wanted to be my family. Not even my family, family told me!” He turned to Lance with a serious look now taking over his face, “You are going to regret this.”

Lance shrugged, “Let me find out for myself how bad you are.”

Keith smiled, “Thank you…”

“Hey, it’s what family’s for!” Lance smiled, shifting his body a bit so he too could stare up at the metal cover just inches away from his nose. He grinned and said in a suspecting tone, “So tell me about the stuff you’ve done that’s gayer than this.”

Keith clenched his teeth and groaned, still smiling though, “You bastard, so you heard that!”

“Why are you so afraid to tell me you are gay? Or at least you do something with guys, because it is obvious. Whatever is said in the trunk stays in the trunk, alright? You can trust me!”

Keith sighed, looking away from Lance, “The fact that I’m in a trunk alone with you with no escape unless I wanted to be eaten by the infected is what scares me. I just…  I don’t want a repeat of what happened with my past group.”

“...Can I ask what happened with your past group?”

“We’ve been talking so much about me! Either talk about yourself or I’m just going to try to fall asleep. And you aren’t allowed to get handsy with me when I’m unconscious.”

Lance could sense that Keith was at his tipping point for vulnerability and decided to stop, deciding that it was his turn to talk and then they would both go to bed. He felt that since Keith told him something deep, he would tell Keith the deepest thing about him even though it wouldn’t even match to what Keith had been through. 

“I have killed seventeen people since the start of the apocalypse.”

There was silence. 

“Is that a threat to get me to talk, or are you telling me something about yourself?” Keith asked in an almost sarcastic tone. 

Lance laughed a little, “I’m telling you about myself. I just… I haven’t told it to anyone or even said it out loud, just because it scares me that I’ve killed so many people. I don’t want to scare anyone else.”

“I’ve killed thirty-three people. You’re fine,” Keith yawned. 

Lance’s eyes widened, “Is that what happened with your old group?”

Keith laughed, “I wish. They are still alive. But I’ve just had a lot of run-ins with people.”

“We’d be considered murderers in our old world,” Lance noted, turned to look to Keith who was still staring up at the metal cover above them.

He shrugged, still looking up, “We are considered survivors in this one.”

 

**November 7th 7:00 am**

Keith didn’t remember falling asleep, but when he woke up he was in Lance arms and the sun was shining bright in his face. Keith didn’t even realize what it meant to see the sun until he remember what happened last night. 

His eyes widened when he remembered the mob of the infected that almost killed them until they locked themselves into the trunk of the truck with a metal cover. Keith looked up to see Hunk and Pidge looking at them with grins on their faces and a camera in Pidge’s hand. It was the polaroid camera that Keith kept in his backpack. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he shot up from where he was laying beside Lance, “It isn't what you think!”

Pidge smirked and looked at a polaroid in her hand, saying in a sly tone, “This picture begs to differ.”

Hunk groaned, “I woke to twenty infected trying to bust into the truck and you guys were in the back feeling the love!”

“No, we got locked out of the truck when the infected were coming and we had to come back here for refuge!” Keith argued, slapping Lance on the chest and forcing him to wake up with a harsh, “Tell your group that we didn’t do anything!”

Lance woke up, not seeming too surprised that Hunk managed to pick the lock to open up the trunk cover. He just put a thumbs up and grinned at Hunk while saying, “Yeah, last night was great. Hey, we’re all family now by the way.”

Both Pidge and Hunk turned away at the same time making fake gagging noises as they simultaneously yelled, “Disgusting, Lance, don’t make it so obvious you two slept together.”

“We didn’t-!” Keith started to yell, but knew he would get nowhere being frustrated. He turned to look at Lance and glared at him as soon as their eyes met, growling out the words, “You are dead to me.”

Lance laughed awkwardly, “Ok fine, guys we didn’t sleep together. Keith’s not even gay.”

Keith caught Lance putting his fingers up in quotations, but decided not to say anything about it since Hunk and Pidge didn’t notice it. He got out of the trunk of the truck and looked around, seeing all of the officially dead infected laying around the car, but far enough away for them not to be stuck in a pile of bodies. 

He turned to Hunk and Pidge, “How did you guys kill them all?”

“Hunk’s our brawler, I’m the brains,” Pidge explained, elbowing Hunk in the shoulders. “With my brilliant plan and someone brave enough to do it, we managed to save you guys. To be fair though, Lance is our awesome driver and ‘team captain’."

Hunk turned to Keith, "Now that you are part of our group, what do you want to be?”

Keith’s eyes widened at the question. He looked down at his gloves that Lance gave to him. What was he? He had no idea what he was even when he was on his own. Was he even part of this team? No… 

“I’m temporary,” Keith answered. 

Lance groaned and got up, “He’s our ninja, duh.”

“That’s borderline racist but kind of makes sense,” Hunk called Lance out even though he was somewhat agreeing with him at the same time. 

Keith was mad that they were ignoring his comment and now talking about how he was the ninja of the team. Didn’t they understand that he wasn’t part of their team? Did they not get that he was just not team material? What was he thinking getting himself into this mess?

His thoughts were interrupted when Lance nudged him on his shoulder and said quiet enough for only Keith to hear, “Hey, remember we’re all a family now. You can relax.”

Keith nodded his head, feeling everything in him shy away to Lance’s touch. His face felt hot and he looked away try to think straight even though Lance’s presence was affecting him more than he could bare. How could he relax with someone like Lance by his side constantly?

**November 7th 5:00 pm**

They had been on the road for four hours now since lunch and Keith was yet again squished in between Lance and Hunk. Still having no idea what was happening to him, Keith had come to the deduction that these feeling swelling up inside of his heart were never going to go away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Keith pining now????  
> Thank you for the comments to those who leave the comments! It is what keeps me writing.


	6. shots

**_FLASHLIGHT_ **

**_CHAPTER SIX_ **

 

_ Warning: there will be attempted rape in this next chapter (not done between Lance and Keith). Be careful and be sure you will be ok before you continue to read.  _

_ Safe reading ^-^ _

 

**November 7th 5:01 pm**

“I need to piss”, Keith muttered out, eyes wide. 

Lance sighed, “We are about to go through a bad part of town with groups of people that shoot first and ask questions later. Can you wait?”

“I need to…” Keith breathed out, his heart beating faster the more he thought about what was happening to him. “I need to throw up.”

“That’s Hunk’s thing,” Lance joked until he truly realized what Keith said and his eyes widened. He swerved to the side of the road and jumped out of the car, letting Keith get out quickly as he yelled out, “Please don’t throw up in my car! She’s been through too much.”

Keith ran over to the edge of the woods on the side of the road and threw up, actually feeling nervous enough to go through with his excuse to just be out of that car for a few minutes. He held onto a tree and wiped his mouth with his arm, looking down at the grass as he tried to think straight for just a few minutes. 

He wasn’t possibly… starting to like Lance was he? 

No, that was impossible. The kid was annoying, loud, full of himself, and probably very dangerous. Keith knew this, so why was he trying to lie to himself that Lance could be the best thing to happen to him since this apocalypse started? His thoughts were being blurred… He had to leave before he was completely blinded by feelings. Last time he told someone his feelings, the person turned on him and made him regret ever having them. 

He turned around to the truck to start walking to it with a plan to grab his backpack and leave without a word more to them, but was suddenly face to face with Lance. Their eyes both went wide at the same time when they realized how close they were to each other, and they stepped back so there was a foot between them again. 

“I just came to check on you,” Lance managed to say, looking down. 

“Ah…” Keith mumbled, “I’m fine.”

“Pidge just looked at the map and found out that we are two miles away from a small neighborhood, so we can rest there for the night. Does that sound good?”

“Oh…”

Lance stepped closer, “What’s wrong?”

Keith stepped back, “Nothing, it’s just…” He looked up into Lance’s eyes, “Please stop playing pop music when we are riding in the car. And since I’m squished against you for this car ride, don’t talk, cause when you talk, your shoulders move and it’s uncomfortable for me. You are also loud and it is hard to fall asleep with your voice right next to my ear.” Keith didn't want to say what was actually on his mind, so he just pointed out the little things that only somewhat irritated him instead. 

Lance’s sincere expression faded and he squinted his eyes at Keith in confusion for the sudden mood change, “That’s the problem?”

“Yep,” Keith nodded his head, “Yeah. I was so angry I threw up.”

“Is that even possible?” Lance tilted his head in further confusion. “Why are you putting my music down? I thought we had a bonding moment last night! We talked about our feelings!”

Keith shrugged, “Bonding moment or not, your choice of music sucks. You can shove Shakira up your ass.”

He didn’t want to say any of these things, but he knew pushing Lance away like this was much easier than being pushed away from Lance himself. He started to walk to the car as Lance stormed after him yelling out frustrated, “Just cause you like dick doesn’t mean you have to be a dick!”

Lance immediately stopped walking behind Keith, knowing that that comment was going to cause Keith to snap. Keith stopped walking as well and turned around quickly to punch Lance in the jaw. He didn’t yell anything back at Lance. All he did was just stare at him with a glare that made Lance both angry and scared at the same time. 

Lance clenched his teeth and jumped forward to attack Keith, yelling out, “Vete a la mierda, you jackass!” 

He tackled Keith to the ground and punched him back in the face. Keith grabbed Lance’s shirt and pulled him down to the ground next to them, switching their positions so he was now straddling him on top of him. Keith struggled to keep Lance down, wanting to hold him down for long enough until he gave up and cried for mercy. 

“You are a prick!” Keith growled, grabbing Lance’s shirt and pulling him up to eye level. He raised his right arm to punch him again, but Lance punched Keith in the gut and scrambled away to the car. Keith was running right behind him shouting out, “Let me get my backpack, I’m leaving!”

“What?” Lance stopped running to turn around and ask. “You aren’t seriously leaving over me making a gay joke, are you?”

Keith walked past Lance and grabbed his backpack out of the car, slinging it around his shoulder as he flipped a bird to Lance, “Fuck. You.”

“Is that all you know how to say?” Lance called after him as he started walking down the road. “I thought you were happy to finally have a family!” 

“Uhh, Lance? What just happened?” Pidge asked from the car. 

Lance was watching Keith leave, anger and so many more emotions boiling in him for the first time ever. He hated how he reacted in certain situations, but he didn’t want to stop himself from yelling out, “No wonder why you have no family, cause you always push people away!”

Keith kept walking. 

He called out again, “You’re right, I do regret saying I wanted us to be family! And I knew I would cause who wants to be in a group with a cold-hearted prick like you! I was only being nice to you because I found out you’re an orphan! I hope an infected bites you and it works!” Lance bit his tongue and stopped himself from saying anything else. He knew he had gone too far by saying those things and he knew he didn’t mean any of those words. He liked Keith so far with the time they spent together, and a fight like this wasn’t going to change his mind. 

Keith stopped when Lance finished shouting, turning around and surprising the whole group with fat tears in his eyes. He sniffled and and clenched his hands into fists, “Me too.”

He then turned around and started to run off into the direction of the town, not looking back as he tried to separate himself as much as he could from Lance. He knew he was making a stupid decision, running away from a safe group and right into a town that was known to be the territory of dangerous groups, more specifically his old group, but he couldn’t stay around any longer. He was right about one thing in his mind; he was better off alone.

 

**November 7th 8:00 pm**

Keith had found a gas station to hide out in for the night, since he didn’t trust staying in any houses in the area. He hadn’t seen anyone or any cars moving around, so he was sure he was safe at least for today in terms of his old group finding him again. He couldn’t believe he had to go back into this area though in order to get to Texas. It felt like all of his hard work of getting away from his old group had been erased, and he was back in the past trying to escape from them. 

Keith found a key to lock up the gas station and had planted himself in the back room to wait out the night. He had a book in his backpack that he had already read three times now, but since he had nothing else to do, he decided to read it a fourth time. It was either this or try to go to sleep, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen tonight. 

Lance was on the other side of the road across the gas station, his truck hidden in the tall, overgrown weeds in the field. If any groups of humans drove by, his truck would be completely invisible to them. This was all thanks to Pidge’s brilliant idea that was the solution to where they would stay for the night in this bad area. 

None of them expected to see Keith sneak into the gas station across from them. All three of them expected Keith to be long gone by now instead of stealthily sneaking across town. Lance lost all hopes of being able to sleep as soon as he saw Keith go inside the gas station, demanding to stay awake and watch if anything happened, just so he would know if Keith needed their help. 

Pidge and Hunk found it humorous that he was basing his late night watch on anger towards Keith and wanting to see something bad happen to him when it was blatantly obvious that he cared for him. 

Once Hunk and Pidge were asleep, Lance watched as a line of three cars pulled up to the gas station, headlights on and motors loud as if the infected weren’t even a worry at night anymore. Lance’s eyes widened and he shoved Hunk awake, saying in a harsh whisper, “Keith is still in the gas station and cars just pulled up to it!”

Hunk yawned and leaned the other way in his half-asleep daze, “There’s probably a back door to the gas station. Keith is fine.”

Lance stayed silent, peering through the window at the cars. He saw a man get out of the passenger seat of the car that was in front of the other two trucks. He was holding a big machine gun that was resting on his shoulder and a megaphone in the other hand as he stood in front of the entrance to the gas station. Lance kept watching on. 

The man had long white hair even though he looked to be only in his early thirties if not less. Lance nudged Pidge this time that was on the other side of the front seat, whispering, “Pidge, I think these guys know Keith is in there.”

Pidge got up, always having been a light sleeper and turned to see what Lance was staring at. She leaned closer and asked, “What is going on?”

“These guys just showed up and are standing in front of the gas station. They aren’t going inside, which makes me thinks that they have Keith trapped.”

“But what would they want to do with Keith?” Pidge asked. 

Keith was looking outside of the main office, remaining unseen though he had a clear view of the outside. He could see Lotor standing outside, holding a machine gun and a megaphone in his hands. How did he find him? He had only been in this town for a day!

Keith looked up at a security camera that was focusing in on him. 

“Shit…” he muttered out, quickly moving into another hiding place that was free from the sight of any security camera. 

That was when Lotor started to speak through the megaphone, “Keith!” he sang out, “You decided to come back into my territory, did you miss me that badly?”

Keith made no movements, waiting for Lotor to get angrier before he decided what must be done in order for him to get out of going back to his group. Lotor clicked his tongue to the lack of response and raised the megaphone up to his mouth, “Alright fine. I’m not going in there, because who knows what you could do to me, but I’ll give you an ultimatum. Come out here and give me a nice kiss to welcome yourself home or I release the seven zombies we have in the back of one of our trucks inside that store for you to fight. If you live, then I’ll come in there and make you regret not choosing to come out here. Make your choice.”

He shifted his weight to one leg and smiled, knowing that Keith would be out here in a few seconds. Keith could easily kill seven zombies, but Keith had tried and failed multiple times before to kill him. He knew that the boy knew his place by now to know which choice would end in his survival. 

Keith was sitting behind the cash register, thinking about his options as well. He knew that one led to certain death and one gave him certain life. He also knew that both options were the last thing he’d ever want to do. What choice would at least give him another chance to escape though?

Lance was watching the scene unfold, still in his car. Pidge was watching as well and Hunk was now awake due to the loud noise of the megaphone. 

“He’s going to cause infected to come to the area,” Hunk said, now wide eyed as he watched the man wait for Keith to make his decision. 

Lance shushed Hunk, “I think he is Keith’s old group…”

“What?” Pidge asked in a whisper, “Keith was seriously part of a group this bad and managed to get away?”

Lance nodded his head, “Yeah, but I think…. Keith has photos in his backpack. Have you seen them?”

“I only saw the one of him and Shiro, why?”

Lance sighed, “There are pictures of Keith being tortured and there is one of him being kissed by that guy with the megaphone up there. I don’t know why he kept those pictures, and at first I thought that he was just hiding the fact that he was into some weird stuff or he had a boyfriend into weird stuff, but he told me he wants that whole group dead. We need to save him before he gets trapped with him again.”

Lance’s eyes widened when he saw Keith walk out of the gas station. He clenched his teeth and cried out in a harsh whisper, “What are you doing, idiot!”

Keith held up his knife and backpack and let them both fall to the group, walking forward a few more steps as he stated, “Ok, I’m back. Are you going to kill me now?”

Lotor shook his head and smiled, “I told you to do something else if you want to survive.”

Keith clenched his teeth and curled his fists up tighter into his hand, walking the rest of the distance in between him and Lotor. When he reached him, he wrapped his arms around Lotor’s neck and kissed him, shutting his eyes in order for him to imagine someone else to make this exchange less painful. 

Lotor held onto Keith’s hips with his hand, slowly shifting Keith’s shirt up the longer they locked lips. Keith was the first to break away, face red and full of anger as he looked to Lotor and said, “If I go back to the group, I don’t want to do this kind of stuff with you. And I need to leave anyways to find my brother.”

“But you just came back,” Lotor frowned. 

Keith stepped back a bit, “If I had my way, I wouldn’t have ran into you. I never wanted to be with you!”

He was interrupted when Lotor slapped him across the face, wasting no time after that to knock him to the ground by using his machine gun as a baseball bat to hit Keith in the face. Keith got up quickly, spitting blood on the ground as he looked up at Lotor and yelled out again, “Find someone that actually wants to be with you!”

Suddenly and too quickly for him to regret saying those words, a gun was placed to Keith’s head as one of Lotor’s men asked him, “What are you doing keeping him around? Traitors get shot.”

Lotor laughed, “Why would I end his misery though? It’s more fun to watch him suffer by keeping him alive.” Lotor grinned and took off Keith’s shirt, humming to himself. He took off Keith’s gloves and then raised his eyebrows and looked to Keith to say, “Did the bite come with the gunshot wound?”

“The bite was an added bonus to that weekend,” Keith explained dryly, glaring at Lotor. 

Lotor continued humming, not seeming too surprised to see cuts and other injuries of any kind on Keith. He caused almost all of old ones anyway. He threw the gloves behind him and started to unbutton and unzip Keith’s pants. 

Keith’s eyes widened and he kneed Lotor in the stomach, shouting out, “Get off of me! We aren’t doing this here!”

The gun was pressed harder against his head, reminding him of his situation. Lotor laughed under his breath and pinned Keith’s limbs down with his own, “Where do you suggest we have sex?”

“No where!” Keith cracked out, still struggling against Lotor. 

Lotor managed to pull Keith’s paints down to his ankles despite Keith’s struggle. He started to pull down his briefs when Keith dug his nails into Lotor's hand and scratched his hand as deep as he could before yelling out, “I’m gonna kill you!”

Lotor’s eyes widened and he punched Keith in the face, “What are you doing? You could have just infected me since you are a freak that probably holds the infection inside of you!”

“Good!” Keith laughed. “I can’t wait to see you become the kind of monster that fits your personality!”

Keith’s nose was bleeding and he felt iron in his mouth from blood trickling down his face. Lotor turned away for a second, muttering out a countdown to when he would turn if he was infected. Keith knew this would be the end of him if Lotor was infected and quite possibly the end for him no matter what, but he saw no way out of this anyways. 

Lotor turned around when he was done counting down and smiled, “Didn’t work. Guess your not human but not quite a monster yet either. Too bad, I would have loved to have you as my first meal.” Lotor growled under his breath and pulled Keith’s legs more towards his body placing one on both sides of his hips as he resumed pulling down Keith’s briefs. 

Keith struggled against Lotor, trying desperately to sit up while also trying to kick him off of him. His breathing was ragged and his voice was only coming out in muffled screams that were at the bottom of his throat. 

He kept being pulled down by the guy behind him, making the struggle even worse until he heard a gunshot ring through the air. Terror filled his body and mind until he saw Lotor fall to the ground with a gunshot wound in his head, already bleeding out into a puddle. 

Keith sat up quickly, starting to pull up his briefs and get away from Lotor’s body when a second gunshot rang through the air followed closely by a third. Confused why there were more shots being fired, Keith looked down to see a gunshot wound in his side. He started to turned to try to find out who was firing the gun that shot him, but before he could lay his eyes on anyone, he collapsed back to the ground and fell unconscious. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit hit the fan. I wasn't the biggest fan of using Lotor to do this, but I couldn't think of anyone else.   
> Comment for next chapter!


	7. Sleepovers

**_FLASHLIGHT_ **

**_CHAPTER SEVEN_ **

**November 8th 12:00 pm**

“He’s waking up! He’s waking up.” Keith opened his eyes to see a familiar face staring back at his. “Don’t worry, you are safe now!”

Before he could respond, he fell back asleep. 

 

**November 9th 10:00 am**

“Lance, wake up, I think he is gaining consciousness,” Keith heard Pidge’s voice exclaim. 

Keith slowly opened his eyes, this time now able to notice that he was indoors when before he was outside, the sun keeping him from opening his eyes long enough to see his surroundings. He started to move his limbs slowly, starting with his fingers and moving onto his arms and legs. 

Lance was yet again in his vision, eyes full of worried and mouth slightly open as he took in Keith’s expression in a desperate attempt to find out what was going on in his mind. Keith squinted his eyes and moved his lips, trying to speak though his voice wasn’t coming out no matter how hard he tried. 

Pidge placed her hand on his shoulder, rubbing it soothingly as she said, “Don’t work yourself buddy. You were shot by the guy that was behind you, but you are fine now. Just relax and let everything settle in on it’s own.”

Even though Pidge told him that, he still tried to talk, wanting to ask a million questions about what happened and how or why they even saved him. Did they see what Lotor was about to do to him? Keith's eyes were forced to close again from exhaustion. 

He felt someone’s hand on his own. His eyes were closed and too weak to open again, but his mind couldn’t help but wonder who it was. It couldn’t have been Pidge because Pidge was on the other side of him, and he didn’t expected it to be Hunk. He also didn’t think it was Lance either, but who else could it be? He was hoping it was Lance holding his hand… 

 

**November 10th 1:00 am**

Keith opened his eyes wide, heart beating fast as he tried to see his surroundings this time. In the room only dimly lit by moonlight, he searched for clues to indicate whether or not he was safe. Where was Lance? Where was Pidge or Hunk? Was everything he previously saw just a dream? 

He wiggled his fingers in search of the hand that had once been holding his own. His hand was empty. Keith made a small humming noise in his throat to see if he could speak now. It seemed like everything was working, but he was now alone in this room. 

     “Lance…” he muttered out, trying to sit up. 

He had the strength to sit up this time, enabling him to look around the room while calling out louder, “Lance!” 

The door swung open immediately with Lance in the doorway, staring at Keith with wide eyes. He stepped in and closed the door lightly behind him, letting out a sigh of relief as he said, “You are up!”

     “I am,” Keith repeated, looking down at his stomach. “I think I remember what happened, but I’m not sure if it was a dream or not.”

     “I shot this guy with long, white hair, but then you were shot by the guy behind you right before I managed to kill him too.”

     “Lotor’s dead?” Keith asked, feeling his heart skip a beat as a feeling of a weight being lifted of his shoulders ran through his body. 

Lance nodded his head, “That is the guy that… tried to, uh, rape you?”

Keith looked down, “So you saw that…” He shook his head and looked away, “I’m so weak, I can’t even defend myself from that horny bastard.”

     “You had a gun up to your head,” Lance replied, slowly getting up onto the bed to get closer to Keith, “You handled the situation much better than I could have, that’s for sure.”

     “You really think so?” Keith asked, his face red from embarrassment that they were even talking about what happened. 

Lance nodded his head, smiling to assure Keith that he didn’t need to be embarrassed. It was one a.m. and Lance was too tired to sit up much longer, but he knew that if he was in Keith’s position, he would someone to be with him at this time, so he tried his best to stay up and help him in anyway possible. 

He crawled his way closer to Keith as he replied, “I know so. I saw it with my own eyes. I’m just mad I didn’t shoot the guy with the gun first… That was stupid on my part.” Lance looked down at his hands that were holding onto the covers of the bed, “I guess I wanted to see Lotor dead before he could do anything else to you.”

Keith’s face turned red and he turned his head quickly so Lance couldn’t see him. His body was aching all over from two holes in his stomach, one in his shoulder, and many other injuries from the past two weeks, but nothing could stop him from keeping up his defensive stance. He had been hurt too many times to let his guard down now, so why was his mind screaming to let him trust Lance? 

He turned back to Lance when he gained control over the color of his cheeks and said, “You must be tired. You can go back to bed, because I’m fine now.”

Lance felt a tinge of guilt for Keith being able to see how tired he was, causing him to waver between taking advantage of the situation and going back to bed or try to prove that he wasn’t tired at all and help Keith out more. He went with the latter. 

     “I’m fine, really. You are probably starving too since you’ve been out like a light for a few days. Hunk saved some pancakes for you from this morning if you are in the mood for some? I can fix you anything from a can though,” Lance grinned in his self-pride of being able to make a meal out of any kind of canned goods. 

Keith grinned, “Pancakes sound good right now!” 

He started to get out of bed, but Lance pulled him back by his shirt and said, “You just woke up from an almost fatal gunshot wound. You deserve to have a breakfast in bed served by yours truly, alright?”

     “Breakfast in bed?” Keith questioned, tilting his head to the side in confusion. 

Lance’s mouth dropped, “Don’t tell me you haven’t even heard of it?”

Keith shook his head. He wasn’t even out of the foster care system yet and none of the families he stayed with ever even informed him about what a 'breakfast in bed' was. He was sure that it was just the concept of eating breakfast while in bed, but the idea just seemed so strange to him. 

Lance got out of bed quickly, holding up his pointer finger to Keith as he demanded, “Wait five minutes, I’ll be back with your food. I’m gonna give you the best breakfast in bed you could ever imagine, just you wait.”

Without any word from Keith about his proposal, Lance ran out of the room with an excitement bubbling in him to make the perfect breakfast tray for Keith just like the ones his mom used to make for him when he was sick or it was his birthday. 

With a flashlight in his hands, he searched the kitchen cabinets and drawers for a tray, only managing to find a metal pan that was good enough to be a makeshift breakfast in bed tray. He then unwrapped the tinfoil from the pancakes and set them on the prettiest plate he could find. He was sure the previous owners of the house would kill him for using this kind of plate so plainly, but they weren’t here to say anything, so he did as he pleased. Lance was starting to light a candle scented like cinnamon when a voice behind him scared him into almost dropping the lighter. 

     “What’s with the candles and pancakes?” Pidge asked, patting Lance on the shoulder to alert him of her sudden appearance a bit too late. Her eyes widened and she fixed her glasses to peer at him closer, “Are you two going to do it literally minutes after he woke up from a mini coma?”

     “What?” Lance asked, eyes widening and a blush rapidly spreading across his face when he realized what she asked. “No, and especially not after what all of us saw back there. I honestly don’t even think he’s gay anymore after I saw that.”

Pidge tilted her whole body in confusion, “But… Didn’t that whole scene back there confirm it for all of us?”

Lance shook his head and whispered, “Think about it. He hates it when I call him gay because he was being raped by this guy that gave him no choice. All of the gay stuff he may have hinted at doing in the past was probably just him hinting at how his old group forced him to do stuff like that. Plus, even if he was gay or bi or anything involving boys, he wouldn’t want to do anything anymore after what Lotor did to him, don't you think?”

     “Lotor?” Pidge questioned. 

Lance rolled his eyes, “The guy that attempted to hurt Keith. Keep up.” Lance placed the candle on the tray and said, “Even if he is still gay now, it’s not like we are anything more than friends.”

Pidge sighed, “What a shame… And you really liked him.”

     “I didn’t!” Lance squeaked out, picking up the tray. His eyes widened at his own reaction and he quickly recovered, coughing a bit and saying in a deeper voice, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

     “Pining,” Pidge called out as Lance ignored him and quickly left the kitchen, going down the hall to Keith’s room.

When Lance walked into the room lit by the night sky, Keith looked up with an expression on his face that Lance could only describe as the most adorable thing he had ever seen. He almost dropped his tray in surprise to how adorable a teenage male could be in the apocalypse. Keith was staring at him with eyes straining to see him in the dimness, his hands folded over his lap and a closed lipped smile appearing shyly on his face.  Lance walked in and laid the tray down lightly on Keith’s lap, “Breakfast is served.”

Keith looked up at Lance and gave him an open smile now thought it was still soft, “Thank you.”

Lance stared at Keith for a solid minute without saying anything, just trying to take in that smile he found only came out rarely. He was determined to make it a forever lasting feature on Keith’s face from now on even if they were just friends. 

When Keith’s smile twisted into one of worry because he was staring for so long, Lance took that as his signal to give Keith some space. He turned on his heel to start leaving the room until Keith suddenly grabbed a hold of his shirt to prevent him from leaving. 

Lance turned around to question why Keith held him back, but Keith answered him before he ever had to ask, “I know this may seem annoying to you, but can you stay with me?” Keith looked down at the candle that was emitting a sweet cinnamon smell that filled him with nostalgia of what the world was like before the apocalypse. “You don’t have to say yes. I was just wondering, but it is fine if you want to go back up to your-!”

     “I’ll stay,” Lance interrupted, already getting into bed next to Keith. 

He pulled the covers over his legs and turned to Keith saying, “It will be fun, like a sleep over!”

Keith smiled, “I’ve never had one. Or at least one that was fun and in a real home. What do people do during sleepovers?”

Lance thought for a moment, thinking very carefully before he suggested anything for him and Keith to do. For once, he was holding himself back from flirting, because he didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable. He tilted his head in Keith’s direction and answered, “Usually what me and my brothers do is we build a fort and pretend to be pirates or something, but since you need to eat and you are also injured we could… just stay up and talk.”

     “About what?”

     “Well…” Lance trailed off, looking around the room as he grasped for ideas in his mind of things to talk about without letting Keith think about anything sad. “We can talk about scenarios. My brothers and I would talk about what we’d do if the planet was taken over by aliens or if we had the chance to rule the world for the day, stuff like that.”

Keith took a bite of his pancakes, “Well what would you do if you had one power then?

     “One power?” Lance thought for a moment, taking the question into consideration for a good minute before he answered with, “I’d have the power to bring people back from the dead and to their normal selves.”

     “Oh, have you lost anyone special?” Keith asked. 

Lance shook his head, smiling, “Just in case.” He knocked on the wooden frame of the bed, “I don’t want to jinx it though. If you had one power what would you do?”

     “I’d go back in time,” Keith answered, looking down at his pancakes. He looked back up at Lance and continued, “If I could do that, then I’d most definitely go back to that fight we had earlier and take back everything I did and said. I haven’t said it yet, but I’m really sorry about everything back there.”

Lance was confused about what Keith was saying at first until he thought back to his last moments with Keith before Keith was shot. He remembered their fight and immediately said, “I am the one that should be saying sorry! Yeah, you punched me, but you had every right to! I really am sorry about what I did back there. That was so uncool of me.”

Keith held out his hand, looking at Lance expectantly to take it. Lance managed to keep himself from blushing bright red as he took Keith’s hand and listened to Keith say, “Let’s make a pact to never fight like that again. Instead, we can…”

     “Punch trees and hug it out!” Lance blurted out his idea, half proud of his solution but also half embarrassed that he added the hugging part to it. 

Keith seemed to like it though, grinning wide as he laughed and said, “That sounds good. It is much better than how we fought before at least.”

Lance smiled at Keith’s laugh, again making a note to himself to make it last as long as possible. He stayed with Keith until he was done with his pancakes and even long after that. With the tray set aside on the bedside table, Keith and Lance talked into the dark for an hour after eating, just thinking up scenarios and what they would do in them as if it was really like a sleepover. Just as Lance was aiming for, Keith couldn’t keep a grin off his face or stop laughing even when his stomach was hurting from putting stress on his gunshot wound. 

They fell asleep next to each other not long after talking about who they’d choose if they got to pick three celebrities to join their survival group. They fell asleep as if their lives weren’t endangered a few days ago, and for the first time ever, Keith didn’t have any nightmares. No, this night was different from any night he had ever had in the past. He was sleeping in a house with a family that cared about him dearly, and someone sleeping beside him to guard his dreams. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this chapter felt a bit rushed. Today was a big day and I only had a little bit of time to write. This chapter is a bit boring, but it sadly is the calm before another storm.   
> This is supposed to be the end of me posting a chapter a day, but please comment for the next chapter to come out tomorrow!


	8. nightmares

**_FLASHLIGHT_ **

**_CHAPTER EIGHT_ **

 

**_November 13th 12:00_ **

“Can we leave yet? I’m getting the stirrings from staying in this house for so long,” Keith groaned, falling onto the couch in the living room as a part of the dramatic act of demonstrating how bored he was. 

Lance sat on the arm of the couch that Keith was laying on and joined him in whining, “Please, it feels like I’m grounded! The only good thing about being away from my family is that I can’t be grounded, but you are doing exactly that, Pidge!”

     "Why are you listen to her?” Hunk asked from the kitchen, nose stuck in a recipe book as he searched for food to cook that didn’t require electricity. He looked up from the book, also equally as sick of staying in the house as Lance and Keith, “Last I checked, you were the leader of the group.”

Lance sighed and fell back onto the couch, squishing Keith on purpose, “I know, but Pidge is right when it usually comes to what is best for our team members, so I have no choice but to listen to her.”

Keith was struggling under Lance’s weight, only managing to barely push him off of him as he declared, “I am perfectly fine! It doesn’t even feel like I was shot anymore!”

     “The blood stain growing on your shirt says otherwise,” Pidge said as she walked into the room and lightly hit Lance off of Keith and onto the floor next to the couch. “Lance it is because of you that Keith is never going to get better.”

     “Not true,” Lance called out in a pout, sitting back up and staring to Pidge with a disdainful look. 

Pidge only ignored him and said to Keith, “This is the fifth time you have reopened your gunshot wound in the front. Are you trying to keep us here forever? I want to see my brother too, but I can’t do that if you and Lance keep roughhousing or you keep trying to prove you are fine when you are obviously in no position to even be out of bed right now.”

She had a look in her eye that made a cold shiver run down Keith’s spine. Keith place his hand of his stomach and felt the blood stain on his shirt. His eyes widened and he muttered out, “You’re right, I should be taking this more seriously. I’ll go try to clean it off and then go to bed.”

Pidge crossed her arms. “I have to re-stitch it and then you will go to bed. And this time, you cannot share the bed with Lance.”

Lance and Keith’s eyes widened before they both stared at each other then back at Pidge. Lance stood up and squeaked out, “We do not share a bed! What are you talking about?”

     “You two come out of the same room every morning. Did you think we wouldn’t notice?” Hunk called out once more from the kitchen with a smirk on his face. 

Pidge rolled her eyes, “I’m fine with it, but you can’t share a bed until Keith’s wound is healed completely. If I have to stitch it up one more time, I am going to personally end both of you myself.”

Keith sighed with a smile and looked to Lance, “Doctor’s orders. I guess I really am grounded now.”

 

**November 13th 12:25 pm**

“Ungh…” Keith let out a quiet cry of pain when Pidge tightened the new stitches now holding together the gunshot wound. 

     “Sorry we don’t have anything to help the pain,” Pidge muttered out, pulling down Keith’s shirt. “I’m surprised you’ve stayed this quiet through all of it.”

     “There is no point in crying about it, so I just try to distract myself as much as possible,” he answered, taking in low and shallow breaths to keep the pain in his stomach low. If he let the pain take over, he would become too useless to the group for his comfort. 

Keith stayed in a laying down position, afraid to move under Pidge’s orders and afraid to move due to the pain he was feeling right now. He desperately needed Advil to help heal every pain in his body including his growing headache. Pidge was looking down at him from the side of the bed with a worried look on her face. Her lips were tightened together as she tried to think of a solution to Keith’s pain though none could arise at the moment. 

She patted his head lightly and said, “Try to sleep and I’ll see if there is any pain medicine here left over from the previous owners.”

     “If there isn’t any, can you just get me the next best thing?” Keith asked as Pidge walked to the door to leave the room. 

     “And what is that?”

Keith smiled, “Alcohol.”

 

**November 14th 1:45 am**

Keith woke up, heart pounding and body sweating to the point where he felt like he had been thrown into a pool while sleeping and brought back to bed. He sat up quickly and looked around, headache only worse now that he had drank so much alcohol in order to pass out. It was like his brain was banging against the back of his skull, forcing him to lay back down again. 

His eyes were wide as he looked up at the ceiling and thought about what was real life and what was a nightmare. Lotor was dead, that group had probably given up on finding them by now, he still had his new group, Shiro was probably fine, and he wasn’t in any kind of danger at the moment. But why were his nightmares back? 

He felt around the part of the bed next to him, searching for Lance only to realize he wasn’t there. Keith sat up again, searching around the room for any sign of Lance. Where was he? Was he ok? What time was it? Did Lotor's group find them after all and he was all alone now? 

Without thinking about how irrational he was being to deduct so quickly that Lotor’s group had found them just because Lance was nowhere to be seen, Keith quickly hopped out of bed and went for the door quickly. He opened it and stepped outside, peering through the dark house only lit by the moon to try to find some sign of the group still being alive. 

There was a gun on the kitchen counter that belonged to Lance, but since there was still no sign of him being safe, Keith took the gun and walked upstairs with it, prepared to find anything. His breathing was heavy, but he tried desperately to calm himself down in order to hear even the slightest sound around him. He opened the door to the first room upstairs, finding it to be a bedroom but not finding anyone in there. 

Who usually slept in this room? Keith could see from the doorway that the bed was unmade but no one was in it. He ran to the next room and opened the door to see that the next bedroom looked like it was never used. What was going on? Where did they all sleep? Keith was about to move onto the next room down the hallway when he heard a banging noise and a low groan coming from the kitchen. 

Infected got into the house? Was it already too late for everyone except for him? Keith’s heart was pounding as he ran downstairs to the source of the noise and cocked the gun as soon as he saw who made it. 

The person turned around quickly and jumped back a bit, shouting out, “Woah, Keith, buddy, what’s with the gun?”

     “Lance?” Keith questioned also in relief, chest heaving up and down as he lowered the gun. “Where is the rest of the group?”

     “Asleep,” Lance answered. “What are you doing up?”

Keith set the gun down on the table and rubbed his head soothingly to take care of his growing headache. He sat down at the table and stuttered out, “I thought everyone died… My nightmares came back tonight… I don’t understand! Why now? They haven’t come to me all week and I thought it was cause Lotor died, but tonight it all came to me so vividly, I just-!”

Lance interrupted Keith by hugging him as he said, “Everything is ok, nothing is going to harm you.”

     “I know that now,” Keith muttered out, hugging Lance back as he took in Lance’s familiar scent that assured him everything was going to be fine. 

They stayed there like that for a few minutes, not wanting to let go but not knowing when the other was going to start to think it was weird how tightly they were holding onto to each other. Lance was the first to pull away though, remembering why he was even awake and pulling away to stare Keith in the eyes as he asked, “I fell asleep on the couch on accident and was about to go upstairs to my room, but do you want to share a bed again?”

Even though Keith didn’t exactly feel embarrassed about this question - feeling more happy than anything about the fact that Lance asked so he didn’t have to - his cheeks grew light pink in a blush making him thankful Lance couldn’t see in the dark. He nodded his head and smiled, “Would you mind if we shared a bed? I know Pidge will get mad at you, but…”

     “He’ll only get mad if you accidentally reopen your wound,” Lance smiled, taking Keith’s hand. 

     “That is usually your fault,” Keith muttered out. 

Lance laughed a little under his breath and pulled Keith back to his attention as he said, “What I am trying to say is, these past few nights have been easier to sleep through with you beside me. I don’t know what it is, but without you-!” Lance froze and his whole face turned red. He quickly tried to backtrack what he said and stuttered out, “I-I mean it isn’t just you. If I sleep with anyone, it is just easier on me, you know?”

     “Is that why it is easier?” Keith asked himself, pulling away to have a moment to himself to think about how that was a simple conclusion to the question of why sleeping next to Lance made his nightmares go away. 

Lance followed Keith and held his hand again, feeling like he was too fragile to be held in any other place on his body at the moment, “Yes it is, but I do prefer you than most people.”

Keith suddenly turned around to face Lance, their noses just inches apart and breath mixing with each other as they stared into each other’s eyes. Keith held a determined look on his face as he said, “I need to sleep with you every night then.”

     “What?” Lance stuttered out, eyes wide in disbelief. “You mean like, starting tonight?”

Keith ignored him and grabbed his hand, dragging him in the direction of his room as he said, “My room is closer so let’s just go there.”

     “Wait are you serious?” Lance asked, eyes wide and face red as Keith pulled him into his room quickly, wasting no time to close the door and push Lance in the direction of the bed. 

He fell back on the bed as Keith said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to try get drunk again before I go to sleep, so you can just go to bed before me.”

Lance snapped out of his trance and shook his head, realizing what Keith really meant by wanting to sleep with him every night. Why was he expecting it to be anything else besides actually sleeping? It was technically Keith’s fault for wording it so strangely, but he was at fault for having his mind go there even though they were just friends. 

He stood up again and held Keith’s arms to his sides, saying, “You are way too young to be getting drunk. It’s not good for you!”

Keith shrugged Lance off of him, pulling out a bottle of vodka from the bedside cabinet, “You have probably gotten drunk so many times, and besides, we are in the apocalypse. Rules don’t apply anymore,” Keith opened up the bottle, muttering out, “If we can kill people now, surely we can underage drink.”

He took a sip of the vodka and his face scrunched up in disgust before he spit it out into the nearby trashcan, “How do people do this?”

     “I have no idea! My mom would kill me if I knew the answer to that!” Lance shouted out, tearing the bottle from Keith’s hands and dumping it in the trash. 

Keith’s jaw dropped in surprise and he looked to Lance with a glare, “How could you! That is the only pain medicine I have! My whole body fucking hurts and now I won’t be able to go to sleep!”

     “Oh crap, was that for you to go to sleep? You should have told me,” Lance said, looking to the trash can in hopes that the alcohol would be salvageable for Keith, but it looked like it had already poured to the bottom of the trash completely. 

Keith stepped closer to Lance, glaring at him closely due to the lack of light to actually see him, “I didn’t think I had to spell it out for you.” He crossed his arms and stepped back, “That’s it, I’m just going to bed. Go to your side of the bed and I’ll be on my side, so let’s just go to sleep.”

     “Come on Keith, don’t get so mad,” Lance sighed, watching as Keith got into bed and pulled the covers all the way over his head. He placed a hand over the covers that were covering his shoulders, “Keithy,” he sang out, “How about I make it up to you by going to get you some alcohol that is for beginners tomorrow at this grocery store that is a mile from here. Then will you stop being mad at me?”

     “Whatever,” Keith muttered out, still not budging from his covers. 

Lance sighed and laid back on the covers, starting to pull them over himself as he said, “I’m only going to do it if you happily tell me good night.”

He could hear Keith let out a loud sigh before turning to him with a scary fake smile and saying, “Good night, Lance.”

    “Are you happy?” Lance asked, just to make sure before he decided to finally go to sleep. 

Keith closed his eyes and nodded his head, “My overall emotion is happy, don’t worry.”

 

**November 14th 9:00 am**

Keith and Lance were sitting at the kitchen counter, having woken up in each other’s arms this morning and got up an hour later due to the both of them pretending to be asleep in order to stay like that a little longer. Keith was leaning on Lance’s shoulder, pretending to still be in pain when in reality, he just wanted to take in more of Lance’s scent. 

     “So… are you two together now?” Hunk finally asked, awkwardly staring at the two of them from across the counter. 

Lance’s face lit up in a blush before he quickly replied back with, “What? No. We are just friends. Keith isn’t even gay. Why would you think that?”

Pidge coughed, looking down at he notebook as she stated dryly, “We were both upstairs discussing what the quickest routes to get to our individual destinations would be when we heard a banging noise in the kitchen and then yelling. We thought that infected came in, but then we heard you two talking about how you wanted to sleep with each other every night before you hurried into Keith room and we heard more banging noises.”

Both Keith and Lance shot up in their seats and started to explain themselves. Their eyes were wide as Keith explained, “When I said sleep with him, I meant fall asleep in the same bed, that was all!” Lance followed him with, “Yeah, and when you heard banging noises that was probably Keith opening and closing drawers and then me throwing away his alcohol. Sorry again about that by the way.”

Keith ignored Lance’s apology, not exactly caring about the alcohol anymore since his pain was starting to dull out. He turned to Pidge and Hunk and ended their explanations with, “Plus, Lance is not my type!”

     “Yeah!” Lance copied him until he realized what he said. His eyes widened and he turned to Keith, “Wait a minute, I’m not your type? What do you mean I’m not your type?"

Keith turned to Lance quickly, “Don’t worry I was just saying that to get them to see that we didn’t sleep together in a sexual way last night, but you are my type-!" he quickly shut his mouth as soon as he said the end of that sentence. 

Lance grinned, “I’m really your type?”

Pidge and Hunk rolled their eyes, looking at each other. Pidge crossed her arms, “I have never seen two more oblivious people in my life.” She sighed, “Oh well, I’m going to start packing up to leave. We can’t stay here any longer. I need to find my brother.”

     “I’ll help you pack,” Hunk said, following her towards the door that led to the downstairs. “I also need to raid this house for anything useful.” He looked back to Lance and Keith. “You two should get packed.”

     “Already packed,” Lance called out. 

     “I have nothing but my backpack,” Keith followed his reply. 

Pidge smiled and looked back at them as well, “Good, then you two can go get as much water for us as you can at the nearby grocery store. Lance you already know where it is, so it won’t be trouble to find it. Get food that won’t go bad, medicine, and first aid kits as well while you are there.”

Lance groaned, “Pidge, are you serious? That’s so much work though.”

     “I’ll go,” Keith said, standing up. “I need medicine for pain, so I’ll get some while I’m there.”

     “Then I’ll go too,” Lance said, getting up as well. “The crippled can’t go alone, and I’m not letting anyone else drive my car.”

     “If those are your reasons,” Pidge said, disappearing into the basement.

     “Be safe!” Hunk called out, also disappearing into the basement as well, leaving Keith and Lance officially alone. 

Lance smiled to Keith, “There is a lake right next to grocery store and I am in desperate need of a bath, so we can take a stop there as well if you don’t mind?”

     “That’s the best idea you’ve had yet,” Keith grinned. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this was a bit rushed. I can't wait to post next chapter though because things finally get good there omg.   
> Comment for next chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

**_FLASHLIGHT_ **

**_CHAPTER NINE_ **

**November 14th 10:00 am**

     “Lance get in! You are the one that wanted the bath in the first place,” Keith shouted out, splashing lake water at Lance who was still sitting down on the dock, stripped down to his briefs even though he still was refusing to get in. 

Keith was only wearing his underwear as well though he was actually in the water, swimming around and jeering at Lance for not having the guts to get in yet. Lance looked wearily at the mucky water, staring back up at Keith as asked, “Aren’t you afraid of infected being in the water and taking you by surprise? I mean, you can’t see anything around you. They could be two feet away from you at this very second!”

Keith’s eyes widened, “Well thanks for scaring me, dick!”

He swam back to the dock quickly and got out, heavily breathing from a bit of adrenaline running through his veins due to just the image of him being attacked and pulled under by a mob of infected under the water. He could survive a few bites, but he wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to protect himself from drowning and being eaten under the water. 

     “I have an idea,” Keith announced, standing up on the dock and grabbing Lance’s jacket to put it on. He dried himself off with it as well and used it to cover himself up for the time being. 

Lance wanted to protest Keith stealing his jacket without asking, but he didn’t want to end the sight of Keith wearing his jacket in front of him, so he didn’t say anything about it. He gulped and stood up with Keith, “What is it?”

Keith smiled, “You might be too scared to do it, so you can just stay here and watch our clothes.”

     “Where are you going without your clothes?” Lance asked, blush spreading across his face rapidly. “Can I please go with you?”

Keith shrugged, “I guess, since no one is actually alive to steal our clothes, you can join me,” he started to put his shoes on. “Hurry up and get your shoes. We are just taking a quick trip to the grocery store and are getting soap and shampoo to have an actual bath in this lake. Who knows when our next chance will be.”

The two of them walked up to the grocery store in a minimum of their briefs and shoes and Keith wearing Lance’s Jacket with the excuse of being too cold to give it back to Lance. Before walking into the store, Lance grabbed a chair from outside the grocery store and banged it against the glass of the building. 

After waiting a few seconds and hearing no sounds of the infected, they proceeded to walk inside the store. They split up with Keith going to get shampoo and Lance going to get what Pidge actually sent them to get. 

     “Hey, do you want to smell like Lavender or Cinnamon?” Keith called out to Lance three aisles away from him in the back of the small grocery store. 

Lance looked up, thinking for a moment before asking, “Do they not have old spice? I want to smell like that.”

     “I sleep in the same bed with you. I get to choose what I have to smell every night.”

Lance blushed, “Fine, then, Lavender.”

     “Cinnamon it is,” Keith smiled, picking up the bottle of cinnamon shampoo and placing it in the shopping basket he was holding. “Cinnamon is my favorite smell ever.”

     “Well can I choose what you smell like too?” Lance asked, smiling and stacking first aid kits in his shopping cart. “Because I really like the smell of green apples.”

Keith placed a green apples scented shampoo bottle in his shopping basket, “Green apples it is then. Together, we are the mascot for the apple jacks cereal, just saying.”

     “Oh no, you ruined this for me!” Lance laughed, emerging from his aisle to meet Keith at his. “I’m changing your scent to coconuts, so put the green apple stuff back.”

Keith stepped back from him defensively, “What? I like the apple jacks cereal!”

     “Coconut,” Lance argued. 

     “Cereal,” Keith grinned, stepping forward to counter his stance. 

     “If I’m gonna smell like freaking cinnamon, you are going to smell like coconut. You got it?” Lance smiled, picking up a coconut shampoo and placing two in his cart. “It’s buy one get one free. You can’t waste deals even in an apocalypse.”

Keith ended the argument with barely any tension except for sexual tension by laughing and putting the green apple scented shampoo back saying, “Fine fine. All this talk of scents is making me hungry. Did you get any food yet?”

     “Just water,” Lance pointed back at the cart that was filled to the top with all the water containers and bottle packages he could find in the already semi-raided store. He turned back to Keith, “While we are searching for foods that last forever, we can get some food too. Do you like honey? I know that lasts forever.”

Keith nodded his head excitedly, “I haven’t had honey since… since the last time I saw Shiro!”

Lance felt a twinge of jealousy in him when he heard Keith excitedly exclaim his name. He didn’t let it take over though, knowing that Shiro was only a friend to Keith - and a straight married friend at that - and he wasn’t a threat at all. He turned around and asked, “So tell me more about Shiro. How old is he? You guys were in the same orphanage yet he already has how many kids?”

     “He has two! God, I haven’t seem them in so long. The little one was one or two when I last saw him and the older one was almost three or four. It must be so hard surviving with babies in the apocalypse though… Shiro was Seventeen when I was brought into the foster car at the age of ten. He went to college and married Allura during his last year and then adopted me a couple months after.”

     “He adopted you?” Lance exclaimed, “So he is like your dad? On paper at least?”

Keith looked down, “I didn’t do well… living with them.” He looked up and laughed, “I was a kid with a lot of problems and I still am now. Before they had their first kid and when I was almost seventeen, Shiro and I decided it would be best for me to live on my own close by just until I was eighteen. I got accepted into a college two years later and I moved away that summer just a few months before the apocalypse started.”

Lance stared at Keith in silence, unsure of what to say or what to ask. He wanted to ask what was so bad about Keith that made the idea of him living alone and away from Shiro’s family a good idea. It was not his place to ask those kinds of questions yet though, so Lance just looked down and muttered out a soft, “Wow…”

He looked up again when he heard Keith laugh and say, “You always ask so many questions. Where were you when the apocalypse started?”

Lance thought for a moment, trying to think about where exactly he was when it all started. He was so scared back then, he could barely remember anything that happened before he was on the road with Pidge and Hunk when most of the world was already wiped out. 

He turned into an aisle that looked like it probably had honey in it and started to speak, “I was in my calculus class with Hunk when my calculus teacher started acting super strange. She turned into an infected right before our eyes and we all had no idea what was going on, but when a few students walked up to her to help her out cause they were kiss-ups, she ripped one of them to shreds. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen to date, but thankfully level-headed Hunk dragged me out of the classroom and to the parking lot, claiming that he had seen other people around the school with the same symptoms earlier on that day and we had to get out of there before we did too.”

     “Damn…” Keith muttered out. “That’s crazy.”

Lance grinned and nodded his head, “I don’t give Hunk enough credit for everything he has done for me. And also Pidge for all the problems we evaded thanks to her help after we met up with her a few months later. But how exactly were you bitten in the beginning?”

Keith looked away, face turning red, “That is not a good story.”

“What?” Lance asked, eyes widening as he turned Keith around to face him, “You have to tell me! I mean, at least tell me which bite mark is the first one.”

Keith sighed and looked down, slowly sliding Lance’s jacket off of his left shoulder and saying, “It’s right on my neck.”

He watched as Lance inspected it at a close distance, feeling Lance’s breath hit his skin as he stared at the bite mark. Keith closed his eyes as his face grew more and more red by the second. Unable to stand it any longer, Keith slid Lance’s jacket back up onto his shoulder, stepping back as he said, “Let’s just say, I wasn’t exactly in class like I was supposed to be.”

Lance pouted, “That is the worst hint ever,” he crossed his arms. “That’s like telling me to guess a food and my only hint is that it is edible.”

     “It’s nothing like that,” Keith laughed, picking up a jar of honey and opening it up. 

As soon as he opened it up though, the door to the grocery store swung wide opened and the sound of a guy humming could be heard as he walked in. Lance and Keith’s eyes widened as they stared at each other in panic. Lance grabbed Keith and ducked down, leading Keith over to where boxes of soda where stacked up in shelves. 

He quickly pulled out four boxes of soda that created a small entry way to the empty middle of the shelf and whispered to Keith, “Hide in here. I’ll be right behind you.”

     “You go first,” Keith whispered, heart beating louder than his thoughts. 

Lance shook his head, “You’ve already been shot two times in the past two weeks. I can’t risk a third shot. Pidge would kill me. Get in and I’ll be right behind you hurry up."

Keith knew that they would get no where argueing so he did as told and crawled into the small space as quietly as possible. He laid down since the space was too small for him to even sit up and watched as Lance crawled in and placed the soda boxes back where they were before turning back to Keith and freezing where he was. 

Keith froze as well, afraid that Lance was seeing the man staring back at him or something like that, but instead, Lance was staring at him with his face growing a darker shade of red by the second. Keith would have asked what was wrong if he hadn’t heard the man’s voice shout in a southern accent throughout the store, “Any infected in here? No? Ok, great. Hey Earl, the two survivors are probably long gone by now already.”

     “Without their clothes on?” they heard a man shout from outside the store. 

The man haulted before he was about to leave the store, sighing as he shouted back, “Damn, you’re right. I’ll look through the store, but I don’t hear anything.”

Keith looked up at Lance with wide eyes, about to say something until Lance covered his mouth and laid down on top of him saying, “Sorry if I’m a bit heavy. We have to be very quiet until this guy leaves.”

He took his hand off of Keith’s mouth after Keith nodded his head in agreement to the idea. They both lay there silently, listening to the sounds of footsteps stalking up and down the aisles, getting closer and closer to them. 

Lance was afraid his heart was loud enough for the man to hear. His heart almost stopped beating though when he heard the man walking up their aisle calling out in a sing-song voice, “I ain’t gonna harm you two. We just wanna know what you’re doing in our grocery store. We have your clothes that we found down by the lake on our dock.” He laughed and stopped right next to Lance and Keith, turning on his heel as he yelled out, “Earl, they aren’t here! They are probably still in the woods, so let’s just check around there and then head back. They could’ve even been infected by now, who knows.”

He walked out of the store, the sound of two guys talking fading further and further out of Lance and Keith’s hearing slowly. Lance’s hands were trembling as he whispered out, “I think they actually left. It didn’t sound like there were more guys.” He looked down at Keith, “Let’s get what we have in the grocery cart and make a run for it to my car, ok? They might not have noticed it yet since I parked in the back of the-!”

Lance was interrupted suddenly by Keith leaning up and kissing him out of nowhere. Lance didn’t even give himself time to think though before he started kissing back. He wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist to help him up a bit more as they kissed. 

Not even a few seconds later though, Keith pulled away with a surprised and scared expression on his face as he said, “I’m so sorry! I was just scared and not wearing clothes and this was how I reacted!”

He barely got to finish the last of his apology before he moaned out in pleasure to Lance kissing his neck. Lance loved the sound Keith made, but he knew it wasn’t wise to be loud in this kind of situation. He pulled away from Keith to stare at him, noticing how he was already breathless. He grinned and said, “We need to leave, but can we please finish this later?”

Keith looked at Lance for a moment, almost as if he was playing his options in his mind and was trying to choose what he thought was the best one. In a way though, he really was. Keith nodded his head quickly and said, “Let’s get out of here quickly then.”

They broke out of the soda box confined shelf and ran for their cart that they left in the honey aisle, throwing abunch of stuff in as they darted for the exit. Keith even managed to pick up his small grocery basket full of shampoo as they made a run for it towards the door. 

With Lance in the lead, they busted out of the back exit of the grocery store and raced to the car, practically throwing the whole grocery cart into the trunk of Lance’s truck as a quick way to get everything they needed into the car in time. They both got into the truck right before Lance sped out of the parking lot and onto the road far away from the two men. 

They drove for about ten minutes when Keith muttered out as he was looking out the window, “Stop in that car dealership place.”

     “Why?” Lance asked, pulling into the car dealership anyways because he knew Keith had a good enough reason for it. 

Keith turned to Lance, “It will be harder for the two guys to find our car if they ended up following us and uh… you didn’t think we would be able to do anything in the house with Pidge and Hunk there to hear us, did you?

Lance blushed and nodded his head, “Those are two very good reasons to stop here. Great idea,” he swerved into a parking space that was facing the woods on the other side of the dealership. They were now parked on the farthest parking space away from the main road and any other possible visible threats lurking around the town. 

The two of them sat there for a moment, unsure of what their first move was supposed to be until Keith finally said, “Have you ever done anything with a guy past kissing before?”

     “Like have sex?” Lance asked almost in a whisper. 

Keith blushed and nodded his head, “Yeah…”

Lance shook his head, “Never.”

Keith turned to Lance and smiled, “Well I’m glad to be your first in a way.” 

He got up and straddled Lance in his seat, wrapping his arms around Lance’s neck and kissing him passionately. He smiled and broke away from Lance to stare into his eyes as he said, “You can treat me like a girl for this part if that makes you feel more comfortable.”

Lance shook his head, leaning into Keith to kiss his lips before saying, “I’ve never liked a girl the way I like you.”

Keith grinned and kissed Lance again, moaning out as Lance pressed his hand up against the outside of Keith’s briefs, slowly pull them down in a teasing way as they kissed. Keith quickly took off Lance’s jacket and threw it to where he was previously sitting and slid off his shoes so he had nothing else on except for his breifs. 

He slipped his tongue into Lance’s mouth, only to pull away immediately due to the surprise of feeling Lance’s hand stroking him. He moaned out before quickly biting his lip and holding himself back as he muttered out, “Please tell me you have condoms and lotion or something. I wish I thought of grabbing that kind of stuff while we were leaving.”

Lance looked around, hoping that he had something left in his car from before the apocalypse, but gave up after a few seconds once he remembered that he never kept anything in his car anyways. He sighed and laughed a little, “Dammit…”

Keith slumped over onto Lance, leaning on him and taking in his smell as he said, “I’d say we go back to grocery store to get it, but I don’t exactly want us to have a run in with those guys in just our underwear, you know?”

Lance hugged Keith and smiled, “I know something that we could both do in our underwear though.”

Keith blushed and kissed Lance on the lips, “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter sexy times?!?!?
> 
> Whoo, ok so to all the people recovering from everything that happened at SDCC, I am there with ya. I freaked out so much, I forgot to post when I was planning to XD. 
> 
> Tell me your thoughts in your comment for the next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!  
> I will be posting a chapter a day for the next week and then I will start posting 2-3 chapters a week with no particular schedule. Thank you!


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